As I retire from coaching I would like for you young men and women to think of this.
You are a 19 year old kid...you are shot up bad...wounded, dying, somewhere in the Central Highlands of Vietnam..it is November 11, 1967...LZ XRAY...Charlie has your company outnumbered 8 to 1 and are within 100 yards...you are getting hit hard with automatic weapons, rockets...your CO just radio'd the Medical Evacuation choppers not to come in....You continue to lie there, bleeding, listening to the enemy, dying, you are not getting out. Your family is thousands of miles away and you will never see them. The outside world starts to fade in and out as blood ebbs from your body. Than over the din of battle, you hear the heavy blades of a chopper...someone is coming, you look up and see a Huey...without the Red Cross of a medevac helo. Captain Ed Freeman has been monitoring radio traffic and he is coming for you. He drops it in the LZ and you are loaded aboard by your buddies. Than he flies you to a hospital and turns you over to nurses...and safety. And Captain Freeman kept going back to the LZ from hell, 13 times. No one knew at the tme but he had been hit 4 times, but rescued 29 Americans from sure death. Medal of Honor recipient Captain Ed Freeman USAF died recently in Boise, Idaho. The nightly news never covered it, they were too busy with Lindsey Lohan, Congress, etc. One of the best from my generation passed on....a hero of this country. He deserves better than to be swept under the rug like a clump of lint. Remember him and men like him.
For me after teaching and coaching those wonderful teams...Vietnam is still always there. Only 1/3 of us are still alive and we are dying at a rate of almost 400 a day. The United States hated its involvement and it hated us for reminding them of how much money they spent...In a few years it will just be a bad memory for the history books...but guys like Freeman were special.
Kids, don't feel sorry for us. We got to live and serve this country. For those of you that will not enter service you will never know how special that is. To see the guy standing beside you, and know that he would give his life for you and vice versa...that is a brotherhood only a few will possess. Live your life in a way that will bring honor and joy to you and your loved ones.
Coach Johnny Jones
Italy HS Red Oak HS
My post are for entertainment only...if you knew me better I'd be on ignore
