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Service Details |
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Last Rank
Major
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Last Service Branch
Engineer Corps
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Last Primary MOS
1981-Rotary Wing Aviation Unit Commander
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Last MOS Group
Aviation (Officer)
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Primary Unit
1965-1966, 1981, HHC, 1st Cavalry Division (Heavy Armored)
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Service Years
1944 - 1967
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| Official/Unofficial US Army Certificates
Cold War Certificate
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Personal Details
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Home State
Mississippi | |
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Year of Birth
1927 |
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This Military Service Page was created/owned by
CW2 Phillip M. Kemp (Mike)
to remember
Freeman, Ed W. ("Too Tall" ), MAJ.
If you knew or served with this Soldier and have additional information or photos to support this Page, please leave a message for the Page Administrator(s) HERE.
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Contact Info
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Home Town
Not Specified |
Last Address
McLain
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Date of Passing
Aug 20, 2008 |
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Location of Interment
Idaho State Veterans Cemetery - Boise, Idaho |
Wall/Plot Coordinates
Plot # 12-J-155. |
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Last Known Activity
Company A, 229th, Assault Helicopter Battalion, First Cavalry Division Air Mobil
As a flight leader and second in command of a 16-helicopter lift unit, Veteran of WW II, Korea and Vietnam. He served in World War II and reached the rank of master sergeant by the time of the Korean War. Although he was in the Corps of Engineers, he fought as an infantry soldier in Korea. He participated in the Battle of Pork Chop Hill and received a battlefield commission. The commission made him eligible to become a pilot, a childhood dream of his. However, when he applied for pilot training he was told that, at six feet four inches, he was "too tall" for pilot duty. The phrase stuck, and he was known by the nickname of "Too Tall" for the rest of his career. And and portrayed in the Mel Gibson movie "We Were Soldiers," Major Freeman began his distinguished military career at the age of 17, with 2 years of service in the United States Navy during World War II. He subsequently joined the United States Army, serving in Germany for 4 years before being deployed to Korea. After his retirement from the Army, Freeman served as a pilot for the U.S. Interior Department and retired a second time in 1991. He also flew as a civilian pilot with the National Interagency Fire Center, which is located in Boise.
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Other Comments:
You're an 19 year old kid. You're critically wounded, and dying in the jungle in the Ia Drang Valley , 11-14-1965, LZ X-ray, Vietnam . Your infantry unit is outnumbered 8 - 1, and the enemy fire is so intense, from 100 or 200 yards away, that your own Infantry Commander has ordered the MediVac 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 1/2 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, and you look up to see an un-armed Huey, but it doesn't seem real, because no Medi-Vac markings are on it. Ed Freeman is coming for you. He's not Medi-Vac, so it's not his job, but he's flying his Huey down into the machine gun fire, after the Medi-Vacs 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 , ID ......May God rest his soul.....He was buried in the Idaho State Veterans Cemetery in Boise.
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