Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Traveler on February 02, 2011, 10:37:39 AM
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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, Tiger Woods and the bickering of congress over Health Reform.
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wow
:salute
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:salute
He actually died three years ago in 2008. Before Jacko Died, Tiger was a sex addict and the Health Care law even existed.
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Just dawned on me, was he actually Air Force? I thought all the Huey pilots were US Army.
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Was his callsign Tango Mike Mike? Or am I just remembering incorrectly?
-Penguin
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:salute
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Heard about this before. :salute
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:salute
Just dawned on me, was he actually Air Force? I thought all the Huey pilots were US Army.
I just checked his Medal of Honor citation, he was US Army.
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:salute
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Hooray for spam "patriotic" e-mail!!1!
The story gives me goose bumps every time I hear it.
:salute Capt. Freeman, three years late.
wrongway
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Hooray for spam "patriotic" e-mail!!1!
The story gives me goose bumps every time I hear it.
:salute Capt. Freeman, three years late.
wrongway
yup..just read about this on Snopes. Still doesn't take away from what he did. Seems like he should have been rewarded that MOH alot sooner.
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:salute
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:rock
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Did you know Captain Ed "too tall" Freeman and Major Bruce "Snakes**t" Crandall both won the MoH, there characters were portrayed in the movie We were Soldiers Once, great movie and the book is even better :salute to both men
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:salute
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I wish you guys would check your "true" stories before posting. read how the story is almost word for word, with just a few changed. he was a hero no doubt and yes he was army unless the 1st cav was in the navy back in Vietnam. check this for the actual story.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/military/freeman.asp
semp
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Landing zone xray was in the Ia drang valley and I think that battle occurred in 65 not 67.
Still a good story.
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Who cares specifically where or when? The point is a good man who did something utterly incredible
facing insurmountable odds.
I could only dream that one day I'll be half as selfless as him.
:salute good sir, rest in peace.