Another Hero Passes on - Unsung (Ed Freeman)
Discussion
When I can, I like to try to give real heroes some recognition in a news world full of meaningless celebrity divorces and pop stars in rehab:
"November 11, 1965.
Vietnam.
You're a 19 year old kid.
You're critically wounded and dying in the jungle in the Ia Drang Valley. 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. You look up to see an unarmed Huey.
But ... it doesn't seem real because no Medevac markings are on it.
Ed Freeman is coming for you.
He's not Medevac so it's not his job, but 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 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!!
He 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 , Idaho."
I wonder; did anyone see this in the news? My guess is no. RIP Ed. Is Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt still together?
"November 11, 1965.
Vietnam.
You're a 19 year old kid.
You're critically wounded and dying in the jungle in the Ia Drang Valley. 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. You look up to see an unarmed Huey.
But ... it doesn't seem real because no Medevac markings are on it.
Ed Freeman is coming for you.
He's not Medevac so it's not his job, but 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 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!!
He 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 , Idaho."
I wonder; did anyone see this in the news? My guess is no. RIP Ed. Is Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt still together?
Edited by Jimbeaux on Wednesday 6th January 14:04
"Whhhhho-oooooaaa Cammmaaaaaflage, things are never quite the way they seem....."
Saw a documentary on Discovery (Chopper Wars) of his rescue. He went back to the scene and said that he must have been out of his mind to even consider it (if it's the same guy who clear a landing zone in the jungle by using his blades to chop down all the bamboo and forest?)
Saw a documentary on Discovery (Chopper Wars) of his rescue. He went back to the scene and said that he must have been out of his mind to even consider it (if it's the same guy who clear a landing zone in the jungle by using his blades to chop down all the bamboo and forest?)
Coincidentally I have just finished reading an excellent book called chickenhawk, about a slick (trans huey) pilot in Vietnam. One of the most honest and immersive accounts of war I have ever read.
Dr_Gonzo said:
Agreed, he still won the MoH; those are beyond difficult to earn and there are very, very few out there....many are earned postumusly. My point is that genuine heroes that have done heroic things get zero mention while the world is transfixed upon the celbrity of the month coming out of rehab.Edited by Jimbeaux on Thursday 7th January 03:22
Maybe because he was a war hero in a war that is despised - even today - by many Americans. The atitude back in the 1960s was very different to now. People have now come to the conclusion that, even if the reason for a war may be unpopular, they will still support the troops fighting it. Back then, the troops were blamed as much for the war in Vietnam as the politicians. You only have to listen to the words of some of the popular songs of the era to understand how popular feeling ran -
Universal Soldier - Donovan
Eve of Destruction - Barry Mc Guire
Vietnam Song - Country Joe and the Fish
Universal Soldier - Donovan
Eve of Destruction - Barry Mc Guire
Vietnam Song - Country Joe and the Fish
Eric Mc said:
Universal Soldier - Donovan
To be fair to Donovan, Universal Soldier was more of an anti-war song.My father volunteered in late ’38 for the army in order to protect his country against the evil Germans but he came out of the war a confirmed pacifist. Thinking back, I don’t know anyone who lived through the war who wasn’t of the same mind.
Many enjoyed the war, for various reasons. For some it was their first taste of lack of responsibility. Many were unemployed and for those that were in work conditions were dreadful. They’d have to work long hours only for their pay packet to go towards supporting their family. Three square meals a day, even if the egg was powdered, when you could get powdered egg, was a vast improvement on their daily life. But even so they were still anti-war.
When a gaoler, I had a ‘regular’ drunk. He used to be a captain in the army, at under 25, maybe even 22. He’d been across Africa in the 8th Army agains Rommel and then had invaded Italy. Just before he went into his stupor he would recite the names of all those in his unit who had died moving up Italy. He would get very angry if he couldn’t remember a particular name.
He was so anti war that cautioning him for D&I could take hours. He had lots of medals, something of a hero in his time evidently.
I think that the hangover from those days was still very much present with Donovan’s generation. Certainly most of my friends were clearly against any involvement in Vietnam. I think the stories that came out at the time, from those who’d been there, not the Fonda rants, were the motive behind the lyrics of Universal Solider. It seemed to me they were saying that if you kill kids then it is your crime. Saying that you were just a soldier is not a defence.
I know that some bomber crews referred to carpet bombing of German cities derisively as APC – Aiming Point Cathedral. Many people had lost family and friends in the bombing of London, Portsmouth, Coventry and other places, and were not at all happy doing the same things to Germans. My dad said that there were rumours of groups of bomber crews refusing to drop their bombs on cities and instead flying out and going across the cities but then disgorging their loads in fields. I never read anything about that but my father was convinced it happened. I wondered what some farmer felt, 25 kilometres outside Berlin, when 200 Lancasters dropped their bombs on his pigs.
By the way, my captain had forgiven the Germans, the Japs and, rather oddly, the French as well but hated Lady Docker with a vengeance. I mentioned this chap some time ago on PH saying I didn’t know why and someone sent an explanation tht fits.
Lady Docker married into wealth without the benefit of a book on how to be a lady. Not, it seems, that she read much. Whilst our chap was probably helping to bury his comrades she called them cowards. The name started with lady Astor who, stupid cow that she must have been, believed it to be a term of endearment (Desert Rats I suppose?). But Docker, it seems, got the wrong end. Neither woman, I believe, did all that much fighting.
I've got to say that the last line of Universal is, I believe, very true: This [going to war] is not the way we put the end to war.
It's been proved often enough.
Jimbeaux said:
cazzer said:
"I was a PFC on a search patrol, huntin Charlie down, it was in the jungle wars of 65....."
Good on him.
You were in Vietnam?Good on him.
just in case you dont know it.
cazzer said:
Jimbeaux said:
cazzer said:
"I was a PFC on a search patrol, huntin Charlie down, it was in the jungle wars of 65....."
Good on him.
You were in Vietnam?Good on him.
just in case you dont know it.
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