Ed Freeman

[Teresa Heilevang]

Ed Freeman
 
  Quite a read. NEVER FORGET.
 
  You're an 18 or 19 year old kid. 
  You're critically wounded, and dying in the jungle in the  Ia Drang Valley,  LZ Xray, Vietnam.
 11-14-1965.

  Your Infantry Unit is outnumbered  8 - 1,  and the enemy fire is so intense,
  from 100 or 200 yards away, that your own Infantry Commander
  has ordered  the  Medi-Vac  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 1/2 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,
  and you look up to see a Huey, but it doesn't seem real, because no Medi-Vac markings are on it. 
 
  Ed Freeman is coming for you. 
  He's not Medi-Vac,  so it's not his job,  but he's flying his Huey down into the machine gun fire,
after the Medi-Vacs 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 2 or 3 of you on board. 
 
  Then he flies you up and out through the gunfire, to the Doctors and Nurses.
 
  And, he kept coming back......    13 more times..... and took about 30 of you and your buddies out,
  who would never have gotten out.
 
  Medal of Honor Winner  Ed Freeman died
  Aug 20, 2008  at 80 yrs of age, in Boise, ID.
 
  None of that is Hollywood fiction!
 
  God Bless Ed Freeman.

Ed Freemon was a true hero......
http://craig.senate.gov/releases/ed082808.cfm

[Pathfinder]

Sadly, I first heard of Ed through Mel Gibson's movie, "Once We Were Soldiers..." Sadly because I should have known earlier.

He was a good man, just saw him interviewed on some show about Ia Drang. I did not know he has passed onto to God's grace.

He was a very good man.

[Hazcat]

A true hero has pssed on but the thing I love about America is more are born every day.  The men and women of our armed services!

[PegLeg45]

A true hero has pssed on but the thing I love about America is more are born every day.  The men and women of our armed services!

+100....very true, Haz.

And, it's a crying shame that the mainstream media does not do more to highlight our fine troops in all their endeavors.

[twyacht]

Guess who pushed for the Medal of Honor?

For his actions that day, Captain Freeman was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. But the men who were there, including the commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Bruce Crandall, felt a still a higher honor was called for. Through the unremitting efforts of Lieutenant Colonel Crandall and many others, and the persuasive weight from Senator John McCain, the story now comes to its rightful conclusion.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/07/20010716-1.html



He was what epitomizes an American. A true role model for generations, and a hero.
Gold Bless the Freeman family.

[Sponsor]

[twyacht]

P.S. Ran across a poignant quote from another American Hero; regarding those awarded the Medal of Honor.

"I think it would be a nifty idea to remit all taxes to holders of the Congressional Medal of Honor. This would cost the government practically nothing, and it would show that at least some of us are serious about our salutes on Veteran's Day."
Jeff Cooper