DAY OF HEROES/NOVEMBER 11

It is November 14, 1965.
You are a 20 year old kid, and you are critically wounded
and dying in a jungle somewhere in the Central Highlands of
Vietnam. Your unit is outnumbered 8-1 and the enemy fire is
so intense from 100 yards away, that your commanding officer
has ordered the MedEvac helicopters to stop coming in. It’s
just too dangerous.

You’re lying there, listening to the enemy machine guns, and
you know you’re not getting out. Your family is 12,000 miles
away, and you’ll never see them  again. As your world starts
to fade in and out, you know this is the day.

Then – over all that horrible noise – you faintly hear the
sweet sound of a helicopter. You look up to see a Huey coming
in. But, it can’t be real because it has no MedEvac markings
on it. It must be a hallucination…or a dream…Then, all of
a sudden you see Captain Ed Freeman, who 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 – right into that
machine gun fire anyway. Even after the MedEvacs were ordered
not to come.   He’s coming anyway.

He drops it in and sits there in the machine gun fire, as they
load three 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 INTO NEW LIFE! You WILL be with your family again –

and you WILL make your
OWN family some day, thanks to Captain Ed.

And you are only one of them!  After that, Captain Ed kept going back…
13 more times!!! Until all the wounded were out.  No one knew
until the mission was over that the Captain had been hit four
times in the legs and left  arm. But, he did it. He took 29 of
you and your buddies out of the jungle that day.

Medal of Honor Recipient, Captain Ed Freeman, U.S. Air Force,
died recently of Parkinson’s Disease in Boise, Idaho, at the
age of 80. May God Bless and Rest His Soul.

ON MY OWN SON’S 20th BIRTHDAY i CAME UPON THIS INCREDIBLE – BUT TRUE STORY! What an honor to be born on such a day…in such a Land of the Free and Home of the Brave! Happy Birthday, Van!!!

Author: friardad

what's it like having a wife and six kids after having been a friar for many years and being still married to St. Francis' Lady Poverty? View all posts by friardad