However, when her mother learned that she was also having an affair with one of the pilots, Chapelle was forced to live with her grandparents in Coral Gables, Florida.

Working at the TWA publicity bureau, she began to take weekly photography classes with Tony Chapelle, who became her husband in October 1940.

Chapelle "was a tiny woman known for her refusal to kowtow to authority and her signature uniform: fatigues, an Australian bush hat, dramatic Harlequin glasses, and pearl earrings.

"[5] Despite early support for Fidel Castro,[6] Chapelle was an outspoken anti-Communist, and loudly expressed these views at the beginning of the Vietnam War.

Her stories in the early 1960s extolled the American military advisors who were already fighting and dying in South Vietnam, and the Sea Swallows, the anticommunist militia led by Father Nguyễn Lạc Hoá.

[7] The lieutenant in front of her kicked a tripwire boobytrap, consisting of a mortar shell with a hand grenade attached to the top of it.

[8] This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States Marine Corps.