BY EMAIL, Subject: The Day Paul Newman Died [Hat tip: John D] - You're an 18 or 19 year old kid. You're critically wounded, and dying in the jungle in the Ia Drang Valley, 11-14-1965, LZ Xray, Vietnam. Your infantry unit is outnumbered 8 to 1, and the enemy fire is so intense, from 100 or 200 yards away, that your own Infantry Commander has ordered the Med-Evac 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 halfway 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 unarmed Huey, but it doesn't seem real, because no Med-Evac markings are on it. --Ed Freeman is coming for you. He's not Med-Evac, so it's not his job, but he's flying his Huey down into the machine gun fire, after the Med-Evacs 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...
...and 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. May God rest his soul.
(Oh yeah, Paul Newman died that day too. I guess you knew that. He got a lot more press than Ed Freeman.)
Added 3/1/2009 - President G. W.Bush belatedly presented the Medal of Honor to Ed W. Freeman on July 16, 2001 (see HERE for details).
- From Main Street Monroe, OH - "Ed 'Too Tall' Freeman's actions were highlighted in the book and movie, "We Were Soldiers Once, And Young". The entire concept of "Air Mobile" was new and largely untested, and he was one of the pioneers. His incredible actions were not widely known for decades, as the initial recommendation for the award was not processed and fell outside a federal statute time limit. Congress eliminated that requirement in 1995, opening the process to several deserving service members. He was awarded the Medal of Honor in 2001.
There is considerable controversy about the relative standards for the Medal of Honor today, with some feeling it is virtually impossible to survive an engagement and receive the award. Recent era citations for the next level awards, the DSC and Navy Cross, read very much like Medal of Honor ones from previous eras. It is important that the standards for the award be held high, but there is real value in having living recognized hero's among us too." --Tom Birdwell
- "Ed Freeman: Born Nov. 20, 1927 died August 20,2008 / Paul Newman:Born Jan, 26 1925 died September 26,2008" --Houndog
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LOS ANGELES TIMES, 5/28/2010 - John Finn dies at 100. The retired Navy officer was the only one still alive among those who were awarded the medal for actions during the Japanese attack of Dec. 7, 1941.
in the north Atlantic. ∴ At Kaneohe Bay, he was a chief petty officer and an aviation ordnance chief assigned to maintain the weaponry on a PBY Catalina flying boat squadron. ∴ When the attack began, Finn found a .50-caliber machine gun in the armory and mounted it on an instruction platform, which provided him with no protection. Despite his wounds, he kept firing and reloading for more than two hours." 
