A Hero Passes

Ed "Too Tall to Fly" Freeman

A measure of heroism that is not so obvious in the Mel Gibson movie: "We Were Soldiers Once......And Young"

Photo: Idaho Statesman (c) 2008

Imagine...

You're an 18 or 19 year old kid. You're critically wounded, and dying in the jungle in the Ia Drang Valley, November 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 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 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 a Huey, but it doesn't seem real, because no medevac markings are on it.

Ed "Too Tall" Freeman is coming for you. He's not a medevac, so it's not his job, but he's flying his Huey down into the machine gun fire, after the medevac's were ordered not to come.

He's coming anyway.

And he drops it in, and sits there in the machine gun fire, they load 2 or 3 of you onboard, as they drop off much needed water and ammunition.

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 otherwise.

Medal of Honor Recipient Ed Freeman died Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2008 at the age of 80, in Boise, Idaho.

Greater Love hath no man than he who lays down his life for his fellows. The miracle of Ed Freeman is that he risked all for men he likely didn't even know, 13 times, and survived to tell his grandchildren about it.

What have the rest of us done for our country and fellow citizens?

CP

Putting Lipstick on a Pig

When is a comment... just a comment and not some sort of attack, slur, racist or sexist remark?

The latest news cycle was awash with the charges --- and counter charges --- that Obama's remark, "You can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig" was some how a sexist or inappropriate remark against the GOP VP candidate, Sarah Palin.

Now, I truly believe that the Democratic party, and leftists in general are in a tizzy about the GOP having a female VP candidate. After all, aren't all true feminists supposed to follow the Democratic line (hook, line and sinker)? How can a successful woman be a GOP operative?

But, in this case, from the evidence I've seen, this comment is coincidental to Mrs. Palin's remark at the GOP convention that "the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick."

This is much ado about nothing. It is a fairly common metaphor... denoting that you can pretty something up, but it is still that which it started as. A rose by any other name... etc.

John McCain is even on video tape using the same comment earlier in this seemingly decade-long election season.

Issues like this detract from the true purpose of our elections. We need to know the substance of what each candidate has planned. We need to ask "where's the beef", not " was that a sexist remark"?

There are rightly plenty of things both tickets can question the other on. Fair, open, honest discussion is not only allowed, it is required. Personal attacks are not, and tell us a lot about the candidates who stoop to that level. This, however... is neither. Its a coincidence at worst. Everyone needs to get over it, past it, and focus on the substance of the issues.

CP