Ed Freeman Lives

Edward Freeman died almost two years ago.

Freeman was a former Army helicopter pilot who received the Medal of Honor for his heroics during the Vietnam War.

He was portrayed in the Mel Gibson movie We Were Soldiers.

E-mail chains are still moving around the globe, now with an enough-about-Tiger Woods preface and other media tripe. Just got this e-mail from a bunch of Madison lawyers. Freeman touches a chord in a lot of people.

You may have seen this passage below; it’s worth posting again. It’s worth advocating that today’s 26-million veterans deserve the same respect; one guesses Freeman would want that. Look around this site, its readers — same stuff as Freeman. A lot of these guys are Vietnam veterans; proud to advocate for ’em. Not so proud of the U.S. Dept of Veterans Affairs.

You’re a 19-year old kid.

You’re critically wounded and dying in the jungle in the Ia Drang Valley.

November 11, 1965, LZX-ray, Vietnam

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 MediVac 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.

You look up to see an unarmed 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 anyway.

Even 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!!

He took about 30 of you and your buddies out who would never have gotten out.

Medal of Honor Recipient, Ed Freeman, died August 20, 2008 at the age of 80, in Boise, Idaho.

May God Rest His Soul.