You're a 19 year old kid.
You are
critically wounded and dying in the jungle somewhere in the Central Highlands
of Viet Nam.
It’s November 14,
1965. 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
MedEvac’s 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 Army, died at the age of 81, in
Boise, Idaho.
I bet you didn't hear about this hero's passing, Medal of Honor Winner Captain Ed Freeman
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