ED W. FREEMAN
Captain, U.S. Army
Company A, 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion, 1st
Cavalry Division (Airmobile)
By the time the Korean War
broke out, Ed Freeman was a master sergeant in the
Army Engineers, but he fought in Korea as an
infantryman.
He took part in the bloody battle of Pork Chop Hill
and was given a battlefield commission, which had
the added advantage of making him eligible to fly, a
dream of his since childhood. But flight school
turned him down because of his height: At six foot
four, he was “too tall” (a nickname that followed
him throughout his military career). In 1955,
however, the height limit was raised, and Freeman
was able to enroll.
He began flying fixed-wing aircraft, then switched
to helicopters. By 1965, when he was sent to
Vietnam, he had thousands of hours’ flying time in
choppers. He was assigned to the 1st Cavalry
Division (Airmobile), second in command of a
sixteen-helicopter unit responsible for carrying
infantrymen into battle. On November 14, 1965,
Freeman’s helicopters carried a battalion into the
Ia Drang Valley for what became the first major
confrontation between large forces of the American
and North Vietnamese armies.
Back at base, Freeman and the other pilots received
word that the GIs they had dropped off were taking
heavy casualties and running low on supplies. In
fact, the fighting was so fierce that medevac
helicopters refused to pick up the wounded. When the
commander of the helicopter unit asked for
volunteers to fly into the battle zone, Freeman
alone stepped forward. He was joined by his
commander, and the two of them began several hours
of flights into the contested area. Because their
small emergency-landing zone was just one hundred
yards away from the heaviest fighting, their unarmed
and lightly armored helicopters took several hits.
In all, Freeman carried out fourteen separate rescue
missions, bringing in water and ammunition to the
besieged soldiers and taking back dozens of wounded,
some of whom wouldn’t have survived if they hadn’t
been evacuated.
Freeman left Vietnam in 1966 and retired from the
Army the following year. He flew helicopters another
twenty years for the Department of the Interior,
herding wild horses, fighting fires, and performing
animal censuses. Then he retired altogether.
In the aftermath of the Ia Drang battle, his
commanding officer, wanting to recognize Freeman’s
valor, proposed him for the Medal of Honor. But the
two-year statute of limitations on these kinds of
recommendations had passed, and no action was taken.
Congress did away with that statute in 1995, and
Freeman was finally awarded the medal by President
George W. Bush on July 16, 2001.
Freeman was back at the White House a few months
later for the premiere of We Were Soldiers, a 2002
feature film that depicted his role in the Ia Drang
battle. As he was filing out of the small White
House theater, the president approached him,
saluted, and shook his hand. “Good job, Too Tall,”
he said.
