Taps
For Ia Drang Medal of Honor recipient Ed “Too Tall” Freeman, seen here Nov. 11 2005 with Joe Galloway, Bronze Star decorated for his actions as a civilian reporter at the Ia Drang in November 1965.
Congressional Medal of Honor recipient Ed Freeman of Boise died Wednesday morning, according to a friend of the Freeman family. He was 80 years old.
Freeman, who was born in November of 1927 in Mississippi, received the Medal of Honor for heroic actions he took as an Army helicopter pilot on Nov. 14, 1965, in Vietnam.
As a flight leader and second in command of a 16-helicopter lift unit, he supported a heavily engaged infantry battalion at Landing Zone X-Ray in the la Drang Valley. He flew 14 separate rescue missions, providing life-saving evacuation of an estimated 30 seriously wounded soldiers.
An email now circulating among the Ia Drang vets remarks:
As we speak, mild-looking old men are limping through airports all over the United States. Each wears a black Stetson cavalry hat, and each is making his way to, of all places, Boise, Idaho. If their fellow travelers ever knew…
Related, Gen. Hal Moore’s Memorial Day speech and Sgt. John Eade’s story: “On Dying and Continuing to Be Alive.”
Topics: everything
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:56 am on Friday, August 22, 2008
One Response to “Taps”
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August 22nd, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Welcome back, Jules. If you are, indeed, back.