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I got this in my email the other day and wanted to honor this American hero. I don’t normally share items like this but felt it was too important that Capt. Ed Freeman be recognized.

Below is the email chain I received:

Courage.

You’re a 19 year old kid.

You’re critically wounded and dying in the jungle somewhere in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. It’s Nov. 11, 1967. LZ (landing zone) X-ray. Your unit is outnumbered eight to one 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.

Capt. 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 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, 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 four 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, Capt. Ed Freeman, United States Air Force, died last Wednesday at the age of 70, in Boise. May God bless and rest his soul.

I bet you didn’t hear about this hero’s passing, but we’ve sure seen a whole bunch about Lindsay Lohan, Tiger Woods and the bickering of Congress over health reform.

Medal of Honor winner Capt. Ed Freeman — we need to honor this real American.

Please.

JEREMY CONLIN

Cocolalla