You’re a 19 year old kid.  You’re critically wounded and dying in the jungle.

It’s November 11, 1967 at LZ X-ray (Landing Zone) in the Central Highlands of Vietnam.  Your unit is outnumbered 8-1 and the enemy fire is intense and coming from only 100 yards away.

Your CO (commanding officer) has ordered the MedEvac helicopters to stop coming in as it is far too dangerous.

You’re lying there, listening to the enemy machine guns and you know you’re not getting out of this.  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 (helicopter gunship) coming in.  It doesn’t seem real, because there are no MedEvac markings are on it.

Captain Ed Freeman is coming in for you.  He’s not MedEvac so this is not his job, but he heard the radio call and he decided that he is flying his Huey down into the fire fight anyway to pick up the severely wounded.  Even after the MedEvacs were ordered not to come, Freeman is coming anyway.  He lands and waits 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!  In fact, he came back 13 more times until all of 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

Honor this real hero!  May God Bless and Rest His Soul.

CED Solutions respects and honors the service of our military members throughout the world!