Courage

[WindHarvester]

You're a 19 year old kid.
You're critically wounded and dying in the jungle somewhere in the Central Highlands of Viet Nam .
It's November 11, 1967.
LZ (landing zone) X-ray.
Your unit is outnumbered 8-1 and the enemy fire is so intense, from 100 yards away, that your CO (commanding officer) has ordered the MedEvac helicopters to stop coming in.
You're lying there, listening to the enemy machine guns and you know you're not getting out.
Your family is half way around the world, 12,000 miles away, and you'll never see them again.
As the world starts to fade in and out, you know this is the day.
Then - over the machine gun noise - you faintly hear that sound of a helicopter.
You look up to see a Huey coming in. But ... It doesn't seem real because no MedEvac markings are on it.
Captain Ed Freeman is coming in for you.
He's not MedEvac so it's not his job, but he heard the radio call and decided he's flying his Huey down into the machine gun fire anyway.
Even after the MedEvacs were ordered not to come. He's coming anyway.
And he drops it in and sits there in the machine gun fire, as they load 3 of you at a time on board.
Then he flies you up and out through the gunfire to the doctors and nurses and safety.
And, he kept coming back!!
13 more times!!
Until all the wounded were out. No one knew until the mission was over that the Captain had been hit 4 times in the legs and left arm.
He took 29 of you and your buddies out that day. Some would not have made it without the Captain and his Huey.
Medal of Honor Recipient, Captain Ed Freeman, United States Air Force,
died last Wednesday at the age of 70, in Boise, Idaho .
May God Bless and Rest His Soul.
I bet you didn't hear about this
hero's passing, but we've sure seen a whole bunch about Michael Jackson and Tiger Woods.

Medal of Honor
Winner Captain Ed Freeman



Shame on the American media !!!

 

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[lincha]

Wow, Wow, Wow, what else is there to say this man is a great man and thank you for sharing this with us. I am sure he was blessed in this life and now will be even more so.

 

[spartacus53]

I would have to agree with you there Windharvester, great story, too bad no media coverage. His heroics surely went above and beyond the call of duty. I think I have also read his story in the past and was amazed at his feat. Now if anything, that is what you call an accomplishment. I guess the only way he would get noticed by the media is if he had fallen from grace like Audey Murphy. Sad thing Audey was another true American hero whose life went into the crapper. When he passed, yes they mentioned he was a hero, but spent enough time on talking about how is life fell apart and he became an alcoholic.

It's a shame that today we consider heroes someone that can hit a golf ball over 300 yards, a batter that can hit over .300 for a season, someone that scores 40 points in a basketball game, etc.. These aren't heroes, rather paid professionals who excel in some sport. When a man risks life and limb, not just once, but many times he will go unnoticed.

There are many more Capt. Ed Freemen out there, but we will be lucky if we ever hear their stories

 

[packerbacker]

Actually it was Nov of 65 according to an article I read and they said he died at age 80 on 8-20-08 so he wasn't just some crazy kid on the battlefield, he had to be around 43 years old at the time he did this. Funny, they didn't award him the medal 'til many years afterwards by G W Bush. Didn't take near that long for Obama to get the Peace Prize.

 

[spartacus53]

Well that story had my interest and here's some some interesting tidbits. Ed at 6' 4" was originally too tall to fly, until 1955 when the height restriction was abolished.

More from another printed source.

Freeman left Vietnam in 1966 and retired from the Army the following year. He flew helicopters another twenty years for the Department of the Interior, herding wild horses, fighting fires, and performing animal censuses. Then he retired altogether.
In the aftermath of the Ia Drang battle, his commanding officer, wanting to recognize Freeman's valor, proposed him for the Medal of Honor. But the two-year statute of limitations on these kinds of recommendations had passed, and no action was taken. Congress did away with that statute in 1995, and Freeman was finally awarded the medal by President George W. Bush on July 16, 2001.
Freeman was back at the White House a few months later for the premiere of We Were Soldiers, a 2002 feature film that depicted his role in the Ia Drang battle. As he was filing out of the small White House theater, the president approached him, saluted, and shook his hand. "Good job, Too Tall," he said.

 

[SC_hunter]

I think there are 90 living recipients still living. Only 6 men have been awarded this medal since the Viet Nam war and all were awarded posthumously. If you are in Charleston, SC...take a trip over to Patriots Point and tour the Medal of Honor Museum. http://www.patriotspoint.org/exhibits/medal_honor/

 

[Tony66]

Unfortunately, this was the first I had heard of Captain Ed Freeman so I had to look him up real quick. If you're interested, another good person to look up is Roy Benavidez. Both of these men are true heroes. As far as celebrities (sports, moveie, etc) go, I don't agree how much they make by any means especially when you have Police Officers, Firemen, EMT's, First Responders and many more who daily either put their life on the line or save someones life and make barely enough sometimes to make ends meet.

 

[truckinbutch]

Any person has the potential to perform heroically in the 'heat of battle' with their life and the lives of
their friends in the balance .
For a man to repeatedly put himself in harm's way for the benefit of his fellow man when he had no
legal or directed obligation to do so defines a real hero . He had the time to think about his actions the entire time he was making all these round trip dustoffs .
Had to have been one hell of a Huey to carry this heroic pilot , the weight of his brass ones , and the precious cargo he carried .
Thank you for reminding us of him .
Jim

 

[RGINN]

I talked to them guys who fought. They didn't fight to be heroes, they fought to get the hell out of there and get home, and they would take you with them if they could. I think way more of Ed Freeman than I do some pop culture star. And do not say nothin bad, whatsoever, about my hero Audie Murphy, from down there near Farmersville, Texas. (I have family down there, and there's a statue of him there in Farmersville) He was alright and we all liked him even when he went Hollywood.

 

[truckinbutch]

I talked to them guys who fought. They didn't fight to be heroes, they fought to get the hell out of there and get home, and they would take you with them if they could. I think way more of Ed Freeman than I do some pop culture star. And do not say nothin bad, whatsoever, about my hero Audie Murphy, from down there near Farmersville, Texas. (I have family down there, and there's a statue of him there in Farmersville) He was alright and we all liked him even when he went Hollywood.

It was some of the same type of AHOLES tryin to pull Audie down that are helping to destroy this country now .
Family man , war hero , movie star that died in a plane crash and all they want to focus on is the fact that he drank . They aren't fit to carry the bandages it took to patch him up ..............