The following was sent to me by e-mail this morning:
Missing from the news
You're a 19 year old kid, critically wounded, and dying in the jungle in the La Drang Valley , 11- 14-1965, LZ Xray, Vietnam . Your infantry unit is outnumbered 8 to 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 he 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 there are no Medi-Vac markings 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 told 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 waiting doctors and nurses. And he kept coming back....... 13 more times..... and took over 30 of you and your buddies out, who would never have gotten out.
Medal of Honor recipient Ed Freeman died September 26, 2008, in Boise, Idaho, at the age of 80.
Paul Newman died that day too.
But I guess you knew that.
11 comments:
An excellent post. The men (and a few women) in my family have a history of military service that dates back to WWI. They would have done more, but that's about the time they immigrated. They lived glorious lives, but faded away silently -- as I will some day. Our media and our society doesn't give credit to the men and women who have made this world a better place by fighting and conquering evil.
Great post, Mark. I hadn't seen this.
I remember hearing about Ed Freeman's passing last August.
Really Jim? August? Well you must have some kind of psychic power then!
He didn't die until September!
And you were an Eagle Scout too? Yeah, right.
Jim, It's not surprising at all that you would get angry because I accurately pointed out you are a liar.
My, my, how the truth hurts, eh?
No, I didn't know that, Mark. Thank you.
I also like the Bob Dylan quote. It's exactly right!
As a former Marine- (an air-winger to boot), I spent some time on Huey's. Nice post. We dont honor our MOH winners nearly enough.
Aside from Audie Murphy, how many other MOH winners can anyone name? They just aren't held up as the heroes they are. Every freakin' school kid should know of a few. Military-type blogs, like Blackfive, highlight medal winners. The MSM only speaks of military deaths if they mention a soldier at all.
Art, I can name Alvin York. Interesting how the only ones we know about are in the movies, and then only in movies that pre- Vietnam war. Before that, bravery in battle was important. Now, it's despised.
OOH! Good call, Mark. With a little thought, I might have come up with York myself, especially since I love that Gary Cooper movie!
But with York added, I'm tapped out. I'd have to use Google to come up with any more. It's shameful and shouldn't be so. But the mainstream media is only concerned with showing our fallen in flag draped coffins or those who come home mangled or those who died after giving up a lucrative pro-football career. Anything to disparage the troops and the president who sent them.
Art, you might be interested in a blog published by my old blogger buddy, Poison Pero. He is an excellent voice for Conservative principles. I keep telling him he needs to run for office.
He doesn't make comments anymore but he sends me e-mails every day with Conservative and Liberal quotations and "this day in history". On my blogroll he has a blog called "The Right is Right". From there you can access his other blog which is all medal of honor winners.
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