Courage

Courage.

You're a 19 year old kid.
You're critically wounded and dying in
the jungle somewhere in the Central Highlands of Viet Nam .
It's November 11, 1967.
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 MedEvacs 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 Air Force,
died last Wednesday at the age of 70, in Boise , Idaho .
May God Bless and Rest His Soul.
I bet you didn't hear about this
hero's passing, but we've sure seen
a whole bunch about Michael
Jackson and Tiger Woods.
Medal of Honor
Winner Captain Ed Freeman
Shame on the American media !!!
Now ... YOU pass this along to YOUR
mailing list. Honor this real American.
Please [-o< :not-worthy
2,406
WinMag
Will do! And you're right, todays media has it all wrong!!
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NotEnufTags
Thanks for the post Mr. Root. It sounds like the movie "We were soldiers" was made about the story you posted. The doesn't show the heli pilot taking any rounds but does portray him as a hero who goes in when others wouldn't. Thanks again for sharing this posts with us and thanks to my father and all the others out there that served in Vietnam or continue to serve our country.

Great Post :thumb
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You've got to love him! :thumb
Mark
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Loafer
We Were Soliders Once, and Young is a great book and gives a graphic description of what those guys went through.
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10sign: Great post
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