commandant. During his first year in office, Chapman traveled widely, covering nearly 100,000 miles while visiting Marines stationed around the world. The heavy commitment to Vietnam took him to that country twice in 1968. In January 1969, President Pak Chong-Hui of the Republic of Korea presented Chapman with the Order of National Security Merit, First Class. Later that month, Chapman earned a Gold Star in lieu of a second award of the Navy Distinguished Service Medal. As commandant, General Chapman issued orders in 1969, changing some policies within the Corps to bring an end to racial violence while maintaining discipline against persons of any race who failed to live up the standards of the United States Marines, acknowledging discrimination in the past, making concessions to African-American culture, and ordering that "legitimate grievances" of racial discrimination would "receive sympathetic consideration and rapid response." By the end of his tenure, Chapman witnessed the III Marine Amphibious Force withdrawal from Vietnam and the strength of the Corps drop from a peak of 289,000 to 198,000. Anticipating an austere budget and fewer Marines, he had earlier made his move for a "hard, lean, fully combat-ready Corps," reduced in size, but not in professionalism. Before his retirement, President Richard Nixon presented Chapman a third award of the Navy Distinguished Service Medal, December 10, 1971. Immigration and Naturalization Service Chapman retired from the Marine Corps on January 1, 1972, and became Commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, retiring in 1977. Malcolm Gladwell has argued that Chapman's efficient and rigorous enforcement of US borders—ironically stemming from Chapman's idealism and military background—inadvertently created a rise in the population of unauthorized immigrants in the United States. (The Mexican border had been a porous border characterized by circular immigration; stricter enforcement raised the cost of crossing the border and incentivized border crossers to stay longer to justify the cost.) Later life and family Chapman died on January 6, 2000, at age 86 from complications resulting from cancer. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors on January 14, 2000, at which he was eulogized by former Commandant General Carl Mundy, a friend, fraternity brother, and protégé. His sons, Leonard F. Chapman III and Walton F. Chapman, were both Marines who served in Vietnam. Chapman was married to Emily Walton Ford Chapman, who died in 1992. His son Leonard died in a scuba diving accident in 1979.