Obituary of Melvin Raymond Chatman

It is with great sadness that the family announces the passing of Captain Melvin Raymond Chatman Jr. on 12/2/2023 in Aldie, Virginia. Mel is survived by his wife of 40 years Anita Chatman, son Farouk Chatman, brother Whit Chatman, sister Susan Chatman, mother Joan Taylor, and numerous cousins, friends, and colleagues. He will be remembered for his drive to help others, passion for history, and dutiful public service. 

 

In the early 2000s and 2010s, Mel was working on a Master’s degree in Creative Writing and started writing an autobiography. The quotes used here are excerpts from his various essays and direct quotes from his interview for The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project through the Library of Congress. Small edits made for clarity and conciseness.

 

“I was born on September 29, 1940, in Chandler Oklahoma at 206 E. 12th St. This was the home of Whit and Maggie Ellis, my maternal grandparents. Eleven months later, on August 24, 1941, my brother, Whit, was born, in the same old frame house and on the same old bed that had also seen the fresh bottoms of my mother and several of her siblings.”

 

“Since 8 or 9 years of age, I was employed in some type of job. Working experiences were wide and varied. They included; paperboy, pen setter at a bowling alley, gardener, junior counselor at summer camp, restaurant dishwasher, gas station attendant, mechanic, TV cameraman, DJ, radio announcer, and many other tasks appropriate for youth of the time. All were short term. I had yet to find one special area of interest.”

 

In 1960, Mel enrolled in Western Michigan University. “A Liberal Arts degree program was offered at WMU. It would result in a degree but also allowed flexibility and study in several other areas. This could be done without any long term commitment in any one area. Quickly, the Liberal arts option was selected. My future would focus on obtaining a Liberal Arts Degree with a major in Theatre Arts and minors in psychology and speech.”

 

“I spent the summers of 1961 and 1962 in an area supporting my Liberal Arts degree program. I participated in an actor apprentice program at the Red Barn Theatre. It was one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences of my new life.”

 

“I was in ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps), which put me into a direction

of going overseas. That was probably the reason I started my Foreign Service career.”

 

“As part of my obligation for my ROTC, I was assigned two years in Korea and that took me into a world I had never known anything about. That was the beginning of a whole other mind set about where I wanted to go as a career.

 

Upon graduation from WMU in 1962, Mel joined the Army. “During my 25 year career as a foreign service officer, I served in a number of countries. As a matter of fact, I served in more than 10 countries and lived in at least seven or eight for extended periods of time.”

 

From 1964 t0 1967, Mel served in South Korea “as a Platoon leader, a company commander and then a S-5 officer. The S-5 officer was one that goes out and handles the public relations effort for the military to facilitate military operations. That's what my specialty became.”

 

“As a part of the orientation for the second of the seventh Cavalry, we visited a local orphanage. I had always loved children, so it was very easy for me to fall in love with the orphanage and its charming children. I became the liaison person between the orphanage and the battalion. It was not a big or important job but it was something to do with all my spare time. I was surrounded by children any time I visited the orphanage. They spoke no English and I spoke no Korean. Communication was limited to the hand signs, making faces, and a big smile. The children begin teaching me basic Korean words. All of a sudden, the former student who was forced to take two years of Spanish in order to graduate, found himself in a learning position again. However, this time it was much more fun as well as useful.”

 

From 1967 to 1970, Mel served in Vietnam. “No matter how many times I look back, I will always come to one conclusion – the place that I enjoyed the most, remember clearly, and probably have the fondest memories of, is Vietnam.”

 

In 1970, Mel was honorably discharged from the Army and returned to Vietnam as a civilian, “when they found out that I could speak Vietnamese, they said ‘we will get you on with AID (Agency for International Development)’. So that was an easy transition. I went back to the States for like two months for my security clearance to process because they wouldn't accept the military so they had to do some more investigations. After waiting two months, I was back in Vietnam.”

 

In 1975, Mel coordinated Saigon evacuation transportation for which he was awarded the Medal of Honor. “I was in charge of the evacuation from Da Nang and then I was in charge of the transportation for the evacuation out of Saigon.”

 

“A green military cargo helicopter effortlessly circled, and then headed to a landing pad near the bow of the large cargo ship. I was standing at mid-ship, watching the helicopter as it approached. We were on a giant cargo ship longer than a football field and about half the width. Just forward of mid-ship was a four-story tower where the Captain and his senior crew controlled the vessel. Just behind the Captain’s tower were two six-story smoke stakes continuously spraying smoke and steam into the hot summer air. Scattered throughout the crowded ship deck were various size cranes and other types of equipment for loading and unloading freight. Below deck of the huge monster were four large cargo holds. Each could hold tons of food or equipment. At the moment they were filled with several thousands human beings-hungry and confused about their future. They were Vietnamese who escaped Da Nang Vietnam in the early part of April, 1975. Less than a month later, many in this group would flee a second time as the communist forces captured the capital city of Saigon and the entire country.”

 

Mel was a key contributor to the novel, “The Fall of Saigon: Scenes from the Sudden End of a Long War” by David Butler. 

 

“I came back [to Washington, D.C.] in 1980 and I went to work on the USAID Bangladesh desk for the next year and a half. I was subsequently assigned to Bangladesh as a result of that prior assignment as a desk officer. So I went to Bangladesh and stayed for about six years.”

 

When Mel lived in Dhaka, he met his future wife, Dr. Anita Chowdury. They were introduced when a friend of Mel’s was dating a friend of Anita’s. They married on April 13, 1983 and their son Farouk Raymond Chatman was born on May 20, 1987. 

 

Mel and his family moved to El Salvador where he served from 1987 to 1994. “It was in the middle of a guerrilla war, right in the middle of it. Of course you had security everywhere. You had vehicles with two-inch thick plastic lining the whole vehicle that made them weigh a ton and made them impossible, you could never roll a window down so if the air conditioning went out you were poo-poo out of luck. But there were so many other positive things. The Salvadorians are some of the nicest people in the world. That certainly outweighed, to a significant degree, the problems over there. I was in San Salvador and I had a very nice house, enjoyed life, and worked very hard.”

 

“Probably the greatest most significant contribution that I made to the whole

Foreign Service system, the AID aspect, was what I did in El Salvador, because I had

under my desk or on my desk, a project probably worth about $26 million which was

set aside to train teachers in the ministry of education to become more efficient in their

classrooms throughout the country. It was an exciting experience because I was able to do some experimental projects and reach out and do things that we would never have been able to do under normal circumstances. Probably what my claim to fame was that I was very, very field oriented and really knew what was going on in the school systems. I would just get in a vehicle and just drive for a couple of days and just stop at schools and not tell anybody I was coming. I absolutely felt that the program made a difference; it really set a fire under everybody.”

 

Mel retired from the State Department in 1998. In retirement, he focused his passion for history by writing a book detailing his family’s roots. Mel enrolled in Antioch University to pursue a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. He spent years working with Anita to establish an urgent care clinic in South Riding, VA which opened in 2005.

 

Several of the quotes in this obituary are excerpts from Mel’s creative writing exercise essays. His public service is best summarized in his own words: 

“From 1964 to 1999, I served as a Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Department of State. Thirty years of this period was spent working in foreign countries. This included living in 8 different countries, serving 12 years in combat areas (8 yrs. Vietnam and 4 yrs. in El Salvador), experiencing various cultural approaches for addressing universal human needs, learning 5 languages, working in domestic and foreign cultural orientation programs for Asian immigrants resettling in the U.S., and serving as a director of an office that processed more than 200,000 Indo-Chinese refugees selected for resettlement in the United States. From these experiences, I was exposed to a wide variety of interesting adventures. Most importantly, I learned a great deal about myself and the world around me. During the eight years in Vietnam and four years in El Salvador, I lived under the dark clouds of civil war. Before my eyes, hundreds of men, women, and helpless children perished. Mr. Death was a constant companion, always near, waiting for an opportunity. The fingertips of his outstretched hands often grazed my back. With a great deal of luck, and little or no skill on my part, his embrace was avoided. Sometimes by a breath, other times by less. Everyone deals with death differently. My escape was to remain distant. I never look at the faces of those fallen. After seeing hundreds of Mr. Death’s victims, I cannot recall one single face. Like a child with hands tightly blinding his eyes, what I wished not to acknowledge is erased.”

 

In his final years, Mel was visited by family and friends from Bangladesh, El Savador, South Korea, Spain, Thailand, Vietnam, and all over the United States. Mel’s reach is far and his presence is deeply missed. 

 

Thank you to Capital Caring Health for making Mel comfortable in his final days at the Adler Center. 

 

Lastly, please honor Mel by embodying his personal philosophy, as recounted by his son, it is a hard world but there is always someone out there who needs help.