In law enforcement circles, the term “take a bullet for you” though macabre sounding, is the greatest compliment you can pay a fellow officer. Kudos reserved for cops so much bigger than their badges. These brave men and women are those rare individuals that evince a truly uncommon courage and honor.

Earlier today I received an email that highlighted this “uncommon courage” in the form of a Congressional Medal of Honor Winner and U.S. Army chopper pilot Captain Ed Freeman. A hero that took not one but four bullets in defense of his comrades.

“Courage. You’re a 19 year old kid. You’re critically wounded and dying in the jungle somewhere in the Central Highlands of Viet Nam .

It’s November 14, 1965. LZ (landing zone) X-ray. Your unit is outnumbered 8-1 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.

Captain 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 3 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 4 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…”

Though the email continues on with a few mistakes including the date of death of Captain Freeman, I wanted to share the basics of his heroic story. Not unlike Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient SFC Jared Monti, the overwhelming sense of honor and dedication needs to be remembered and repeated by all of us.

Unfortunately, the email veers further off course blaming a disconnected media and botches some of the dates and other ancillary information. Hopefully the well intentioned readers and disseminators will pay tribute to Captain Freeman without paying heed to the confused details of the email.

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