You're a 19 year old kid. critically wounded & dying in the jungle in the Ia Drang Valley. It's 11-14-1965, LZ X-ray , Vietnam . Your unit is outnumbered 8 to 1 & the enemy fire is so intense, from 100 or 200 yards away, that your 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 will be your last day on earth.
Then, over the machine gun noise, you hear that sound of a helicopter.
You look up to see an unarmed Huey. It doesn't seem real because there are no Medi-Vac markings.
Ed Freeman is coming for you...
He's not Medi-Vac so it's not his job, but he's flying his Huey into the machine gun fire anyway. Even after the Medi-Vacs were ordered to stay out of range.
He's coming anyway.
And he drops it in and sits there through the machine gunfire, as they load 2 or 3 of you on board..
He flies you up and out through the gunfire to a waiting medical team.
And, he returns ... 13 more times.
He rescued you and 30 of your buddies who otherwise, would never have survived.
Medal of Honor Recipient, Ed Freeman, died last Wednesday at the age of 80, in Boise , ID
May God Rest His Soul.
You probably didn't hear about this hero's passing. We were bombarded this past week with all the "news" about Tiger Woods. Before that it was Michael Jackson day and night for weeks on end. Through it all, the press curiously praises Washington's indiscriminate spending, & the pending healthcare bill designed to control the citizens & bankrupt the USA. They will tout the gathering of politicians & environmental "experts" in Copenhagen, with great vigor and offer wondrous platitudes, even though the intended outcome of this meeting is really all about the end of capitalism & freedom as we know it. The media will also do their part to help stifle debate concerning the hoax that is climate change while failing to report the so-called carbon footprint being created by the collection (travel) of these representatives.
Acknowledging patriots? Their service? Heroism. Not likely. Today's media would never allocate the airtime or print space to cover the passing of a real hero like Ed. Instead, better to use the space to negatively spin the story of the Navy Seals accused of roughing up the terrorist that butchered 4 Americans. In this media's world, the Seals are guilty. Period. For today's politically correct military, it's an opportunity to show the world the new, "compassionate" USA. What it really shows is weakness.
Many potential heroes, this generation's version of Ed Freeman, will now hold back, reluctant to take risks or make decisions, because, in this political climate, chances are they'll be villified & prosecuted, despite the positive results of their heroism. They're no longer fighting against only terrorists, they are battling to survive attacks from within their own ranks, & the media, the political puppets of the day, is simply a branch of a new enemy force.
Medal of Honor recipients are rare. Men like Ed Freeman, rarer still. And the media will make sure to under-report the continued valor of our brave men & women fighting to preserve freedom.
Medal of Honor Winner
Ed Freeman!
Awesome tribute, Dave. I can't say anything else that adequately display how I feel about heroes like this, so I'm just going to wish you a Happy Happy New Year. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteps. We lost 4 soldiers and a young journalist at Christmas. Very sad day for the country.