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

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1987 560SL
85,000 miles

X-2.
My Gramps used to tell me of a Marine battalion in WW1 pinned down by Boche machine gun nests in the hell known as Belleau Wood.
Gramps says to the Commander,"what are we gonna do about those boys"?

"F*ck'em"the general said"they're already dead".

Well,Gramps being a Major,ordered 6 marines with rifles and grenades to follow him around the to the rear of the German nests and then proceeded to wreak havoc and "neutralise"the 2 machine gun nests and got 7 prisoners into the bargain.

Shows what a little initiative can do.

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Heroes pass quitely. Without trumpets. Without fanfare..

http://www.truveo.com/Medal-of-Honor-recipient-Ed-Freeman-80-dies/id/202444027


Medal of Honor winner visits local Legionnaires
By PETER BOLTZ
Express Staff Writer

The U.S. Army told Ed Freeman in 1953 that he was too tall to fly. But two years later, he was flying anyway.

In 1965, the army told Freeman that a landing zone in Vietnam was too dangerous to attempt a landing. But he flew into it anyway, 14 times, supplying embattled soldiers and bringing out the seriously wounded.

The army told Freeman’s commander that Freeman was ineligible for a Medal of Honor because a statute of limitations had expired. But on July 16, President Bush will hang it around Freeman’s neck anyway.

Retired Maj. Freeman was in town Wednesday night sharing stories and dinner with Wood River Valley veterans at American Legion Post 115 in Ketchum.

Freeman, a Boise resident who flew helicopters in the Big Wood Valley in the early 1970s for Intermountain Helicopter, knows the area and the local Legionnaires well. What he didn’t know was that they were going to recognize his upcoming induction.

Freeman was recommended for the Medal of Honor for flying 14 helicopter missions in 14 hours on Nov. 14, 1965, at the battle of Ia Drang in Vietnam.

The reason the recognition has taken so long, he said, is that "you lose track of people, of who did what in battle." And so he was not recommended for the medal until it was too late.

Then, in 1995, Congress lifted the statute of limitations on Medal of Honor recommendations. As soon as it did, Freeman’s commander at Ia Drang, Bruce Crandall, sent in the paperwork.

The citation of his actions reports that then Capt. Freeman, knowing the landing zone was already closed to helicopter operations because of intense enemy fire, but ignoring the extreme risk to his life, "flew his unarmed helicopter through a gauntlet of enemy fire time after time to deliver critically needed ammunition, water and medical supplies to the besieged battalion."

Without his supply flights, the citation reports, the battalion "would almost surely have gone down."

After dropping off supplies, he would load up with the seriously wounded, 30 in all, "some of whom would not have survived had he not acted."

Freeman said that at the time he had no thought of any kind of medal.

"That kind of thinking would just end you up in a body bag," he said.

Freeman was second in command of the 229th Assault Helicopter Company, which had 40 helicopters at the time. When the call came for volunteers to relieve the besieged men at Ia Drang, no one came forward except Freeman.

"I was thinking I was going to die," he said.

"But you know, there are only two rules of war. The first is that young men die. The second is that you can’t change rule No. 1."

He said he was humbled by the award, especially since there were a lot of young men who died that day who deserve the medal more.

Freeman joined the Army in 1948, and saw action in Korea at the battle for Pork Chop Hill. He was one of 14 men of a 257-man company to survive the initial fight for the hill.

In 1953 he tried to get into flight training school. He said he had seen what happens on the ground in war, so he wanted to get up in the air. But the Army told him he was too tall at 6 feet 4 inches.

In 1955 the Army changed its rules, and Freeman learned to fly helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. He also picked up the nickname "Too Tall to Fly."

Freeman’s story is part of the larger story of the battle of Ia Drang, which is the subject of the book "We Were Soldiers Once… and Young."

The book was written by Ret. Army Lt. Gen. Harold Moore and Joseph Galloway. Moore commanded the men of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, who did most of the fighting at Ia Drang.

Galloway was the only reporter present throughout the battle’s 34 harrowing days.

Freeman’s copy of the book was inscribed by Moore.

"For Big Ed Freeman, the legend known as ‘Too Tall to Fly.’

"Your heroism will live forever in the history of the 7th U.S. Cavalry. With highest respect, my old, beloved friend."

When it came time for Freeman to speak to the Legionnaires, he said "I only did what I was supposed to do, what I was trained to do."

He said he didn’t have much more to say, and to emphasize this he recalled a story about an eighth-grader who was assigned to give a speech about a hero.

"Caesar was a great leader," the boy said. "Caesar won many battles. Caesar talked too much. They shot Caesar."

In all the laughter, Freeman went back to his chair.

http://www.mtexpress.com/2001/01-06-20/01-06-20medal.htm

Yup, those "Huey-Loueys" were always my choice for absolute heros. It takes a ton of cojones to fly into a "hot zone" just to drag out some dog faces. Takes even more guts to come BACK to the same LZ after getting your arse blasted the FIRST time!

They were some hard drinking, crazed, barely in touch with reality muthas but Damn, those boys sure could fly!

May all the heroes rest in peace. And X2 shame on the media!

One of our forum members flew a 'Slick' in VN. IMHO, it takes nads-o-steel to fly an unarmed ship in harm's way.

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Never a dull moment at Berry Hill Farm.

My best friend flew a Cobra in VN. He used to say that all the helo pilots rode with their .45's between their legs..... to protect those 'nads of steel.

We should all take our hats off to this hero. We can all draw inspiration from him. Especially his humility.

I agree that it is a shame that he was not mentioned at all in the media. They were probably thinking "Why celebrate a man who showed what American courage strength under adversity and improvisation are all about, when we can whine about Madoff and Briana(sp?). After all there are no more Americans like him anyway"

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"I have no convictions ... I blow with the wind, and the prevailing wind happens to be from Vichy"

Current
Monika '74 450 SL
BrownHilda '79 280SL
FoxyCleopatra '99 Chevy Suburban
Scarlett 2014 Jeep Cherokee
Krystal 2004 Volvo S60
Gone
'74 Jeep CJ5
'97 Jeep ZJ Laredo
Rudolf ‘86 300SDL
Bruno '81 300SD
Fritzi '84 BMW
'92 Subaru
'96 Impala SS
'71 Buick GS conv
'67 GTO conv
'63 Corvair conv
'57 Nomad

We salute you Too Tall.....

To Ed!

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Bill Wood - Retired Webmaster
My Personal Website
1998 Mercedes E430
2010 Toyota Sequoia
My Photo Albums

We are all aware the Maj. Freeman passed away last August?

Wikipedia agrees:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Freeman

Of course that doesn't change the fact that he was a no BS bona fide hero.

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Whoever said there's nothing more expensive than a cheap Mercedes never had a cheap Jaguar.

83 300D Turbo with manual conversion, early W126 vented front rotors and H4 headlights 400,xxx miles
08 Suzuki GSX-R600 M4 Slip-on 22,xxx miles
88 Jaguar XJS V12 94,xxx miles. Work in progress.

Nor the fact that it wasn't covered in the news. I received that in an email and like it so much I wanted to share

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1987 560SL
85,000 miles

I like the armed forces ethic of never leaving anyone behind. Not even at great risk to your life.

I remember as a kid, running around with a group whose moral development was questionable (mine too) and rationalizing that it was OK to leave someone behind who got caught doing something all of us were doing.

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You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows - Robert A. Zimmerman

Sucks that in the movie, Too Tall barely had a part, and he wins the MOH. And Hal Moore (Mel Gibson) comes out looking like a war genius, and in the battle he never fired his weapon..

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MB-less