Courage.

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 !!!

Keith

Actually, Capt. Ed Freeman died in 2008. This email 'forward' makes the rounds makes the rounds with the latest bad actor mentioned. Last year it was Chris Brown name, year before Michael Jackson and this year Tiger.
That's not to take away from what this man did. I was onboard my ship off the coast of VN when it happened and the news made the rounds thru the Navy's radiomen overnight. Hell of a guy doing what was over and above expectations. the word'hero' gets thrown around but this man iwas among the best.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/military/freeman.asp

He actually died a couple of years ago, but the email chain gangs send out the story every once in a while when they feel they need to grind their "liberal media" axe...

Ed Freeman's story is true, he did do very heroic things in Vietnam, and did win the Medal of Honor...and if those who keep dredging up and updating the email chain letter every year or so had any honor, they'd stop using his story to score their own pathetic little points.

He deserves better than that.

Fish on...

Todd

Anyone who would use this story for political gain would most certainly sh!t their pants if they actually had to endure a battle such as this.

Notable Awards

Pilots Major Bruce Crandall and Captain Ed Freeman were each awarded on February 26, 2007, the Medal of Honor for their numerous volunteer flights (22 and 14, respectively), into LZ X-Ray while enemy fire was so heavy that medical evacuation helicopters refused to approach. With each flight, Crandall and Freeman delivered much needed water and ammunition, and extracted wounded soldiers, saving countless lives.[6][7]

Journalist Joseph Galloway would be the only civilian awarded the Bronze Star Medal for valor for actions in Vietnam. Taking up arms alongside the overwhelmed men he was covering, he repeatedly disregarded his own safety to rescue wounded soldiers under fire.[8]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ia_Drang

If I was born a few years earlier......

Edit:
I was aware of some of this stuff as a kid and it ripped my heart out.
I can remember the grainy satellite feeds with Peter Jennings reporting live from the battlefields.

First I had ever seen it personally, just hit me in a way that most things don't. Was pleasant to see people like Mr. Freeman really existed!

Keith

Yep, I was manipulated by the very same thing about a year ago. I searched it on Snopes and then publicly ate my crow.
That is without doubt, the reason I posted previously the way I did.

I dont' agree Todd.
I'm happy to have read this story here. I"ve never seen the email version (though I also don't get offers for $10.5M from Tongan expeditors!).

If we have any kind of oral history left to us, those stories now live as electrons, and deserve to be trotted out.

+100

+ 1 million!

He earned the medal in the battle of Ia Drang in November 1965. He deserves any and all attention for his selfless act. The estimated NVA and Vet Cong losses were a staggering 1519 killed with US and South Vietnamese sustaining 234 killed/242 wounded. The book We Were Soldiers Once… And Young by Harold G. Moore is a very good book. The movie We Were Soldiers with Mel Gibson is also worth watching.

Don't misunderstand me...his story is important, historical, and should be out there as much as possible...just not as a tool for some dipshits to score political points by using his story.

Fish on...

Todd

I once met a guy in hunting camp who was apart of the lost platoon that spent a night behind the enemy lines in that valley. His close buds where stunned when he started talking about it because he never mentioned Vietnam. What brought it up was that "We Where Soldiers" (starring Mel Gibson and chronicals this battle) was just released. He was a consultant for the movie and the quote "I can smell them-no not the dead one's" is attributed to him. He was a super nice guy and you would never have guessed him as a true American hero upon meeting him.

He is one reason you will never see me bashing Native Americans on this or any other site. Sure I will be critical of certian tribes when warranted but not as a people as a whole. That's just being a bigot. And this guys actions under fire is one reason that bigots are just fucked up humans!!!

Major Crandall is one of eight UW grads to earn the Medal of Honor and UW recently erected a memorial in their honor. I plan on visiting it sometime this fall!

Earning a medal, of any sort, was the furthest thing from Bruce Crandall's mind on the morning of Nov. 14, 1965, as he repeatedly flew his Huey helicopter through a hail of enemy fire in Vietnam. Only this mattered: His comrades needed him.

UW to honor war heroes with Medal of Honor memorial (WA)