You're a 19-year-old kid. You're
critically wounded and dying in the
jungle in the Ia Drang Valley , 11-14-19
65, LZ X-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 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
and 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, 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 Recipient Ed Freeman
died on Wednesday, June 25th, 2009, at
the age of 80, in Boise , ID.
May God rest his soul.
THANKS AGAIN, ED, FOR WHAT YOU DID FOR
OUR COUNTRY.
RIP