Courage.

froggy

Gold Member
Aug 18, 2009
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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 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 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 Medi-Vac markings are on it.

Captain Ed Freeman is coming in for you.

He's not Medi-Vac 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 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 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 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 and Tiger Woods.




Medal of Honor Winner
Captain Ed Freeman

Shame on the American media !!!
 
The best defense is a good offense!

M8-Armored-Car-A.jpg
 
A life well lived.

It never ceases to amaze me how these courageous bastards come out of the wood work in war. I suppose they would do courageous things in civilian life too, even if it is just sacrifice their material comfort to help others, but war really brings some of these guys and gals out into their bliss.

By bliss I do not mean joy or happiness, but rather the realization that one is in the exact place and time they are supposed to be.

That they are making a difference.

This is why they will risk it all, they are in their bliss.
 
It is very, very rare that I use the word 'hero', but this guy was. If more people knew about guys like him, fewer people would misuse the word 'hero'.
 
There is a little hero in all of us.

OK, I really don't believe that trite shit but I really need some cash and Hallmark Australia is hiring.
 
I heard from a friend of a friend who had no friends that they once had to remove a little hero from Rod Stewart's anus.

Could be an urban myth?

You decide.
 
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