Dear Veterans and fellow readers,
Occasionally, I get a letter from someone that I feel should be shared with you. This is such a letter.

Hello Evelyn,

I am the Native American editor here at BellaOnline. My daughter fwd'd an email to me that I thought you might like to see - it is about courage and a great veteran:

Courage.

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 MedEvac 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 MedEvac markings are on it.

Captain Ed Freeman 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 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 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 Bless and Rest His Soul.
*****
It is stories like this that make me so very proud of our military veterans and so very proud to be an American.

Thank you for letting me share this with you.
Phyllis

Please be sure to drop by Phyllis' Native American page here on Bella and tell her how much we appreciate her sharing this with us!
http://www.bellaonline.com/site/nativeamerican

At Ease,
Evelyn Rainey, Veterans Editor
http://Veterans.bellaonline.com
http://Evelyn-Rainey.com

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