Warbird Information Exchange

Ed Freeman

You're an 19 year old kid. You're critically wounded, and dying in the
jungle in the Ia Drang Valley , 11-14-1965, 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 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 an un-armed 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 last Wednesday at the age of 80,
in Boise , ID .......May God rest his soul.....


I bet you didn't hear about this hero's


passing, but we sure were told a whole


bunch about some Hip-Hop Coward


beating the crap out of his "girlfriend"

Medal of Honor Winner

Ed Freeman!
Shame on the American Media

MSNBC photo


http://video.aol.com/video-detail/nightly-news-medal-of-honor-recipient-ed-freeman-80-dies/202444027/?icid=VIDURVNWS05

http://www.2news.tv/news/local/27180989.html

_________________
Zane Adams
There I was at 20,000 ft, upside down and out of ammunition.
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He passed away about 8 months ago RIP anyway though

_________________
Don't touch my junk!!

Very interesting read on the MOH page.

What is really interesting is seeing the evolution of what was done to be a recipient (sp). During the Civil War you could be awarded for retrieving the enemys flag or saving your own sides colors.

Good site with alot of heroic stories

http://www.history.army.mil/moh.html

Disclaimer lest anybody get confused...
I am not nor never was a Ranger...
The following is from a friend who WAS attached to the 2nd of the 75th...
(My apologies for the http: punctuation funkiness.)

It diminishes Ed Freeman's story (RIP ) not one whit...
rather it corrects the part of the "Inf. Commander's" Col. Hal Moore's in it...



went to post this to RangerList, decided to search and make sure it hadn't already been..... here's what i found it was, and in reply to it, this:>> *your own Infantry Commander has ordered the MediVac helicopters> to stop coming in. > *>>>> *The above comment is not true. COL Hal Moore did not order them not > to come in. The Medical Evacuation Unit Commander refused to send his > helicopters into a hot LZ.  >> COL Hal Moore states in chapter 9 of the book WE WERE SOLDIERS > ONCE... AND YOUNG, "I asked Bruce Crandall's brave aircrews of Alpha > Company, the 229th Aviation Battalion, for the last measure of > devotion, for services far beyond the limits of duty and, > mission, and they came through as I knew they would." and > "Hauling the wounded off the battle field was a medical-evacuation > helicopter mission. But this was early in the war, and the medevac > commanders had decreed that their birds would not land in hot landing > zones --or, in other words, that they would not go where they were > needed, when they were needed most."  >> *Just couldn't let that stand. The Med Evac pilots did unbelievably > heroic work later in the war. I was witness to some of it.Â

_________________
Support Your Local Warbirds! KBO!
The only reasons the airplanes matter is what the veterans did with them... and why.

Not to detract from the original story, but as has been stated, later in the war Medivac helicopters did go in harm's way. CWO Mike Novosel earned the CMH flying "Dust-off" in Vietnam, serving two tours, and at one time being part of the only "father-son medivac team" in South VN... He also retired as the last serving/flying WWII USAAF Combat Pilot, as he had also been a B-17/24/29 aircraft commander during WWII. (He passed in the 1990s)

Sorry to hear about Ed Freeman's passing, belated or not.

Robbie