Dad just sent me an e-mail that gave me pause. I have a lot on my mind and haven't had a chance to get it all. I have class in ten minutes, so here's a story I lifted from an e-mail. I haven't checked the facts, but will later.
***
You're an 18 or 19 year old kid. You're critically wounded, and dying in the jungle in the Ia Drang Valley, Nov-14-1965, LZ Xray, 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. The pilot, 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 inthe machine gun fire, as they load 2 or 3 of you onboard. Then he flies you up and out through the gunfire, to theDoctors 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 Wednesday, Aug 20, 2008 at the age of 80, in Boise , ID.
May God rest his soul.
(Oh yeah, Paul Newman died that day too. I guessyou knew that -- He got a lot more press than Ed Freeman.)
***
I verified. Read the story: http://dailynightly.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/07/11/265756.aspx
PS: The picture is from my brother's first deployment. He left for his second deployment last Friday.
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