Ed Freeman

The dream for many musicians is to have their music touch the lives of the people who hear it. As pipers we have a great opportunity to touch and influence the people who call upon our services. Funeral bagpiping is, in my opinion the greatest responsibility we hold. I have so many opportunities to provide this service each year and I always consider it an honor to play the bagpipes at the graveside of someone's lost loved one. I'm particularly honored to provide this service to our American Heroes. In this post I would like to feature one such hero. Although I did not have the opportunity to play for this individual, I have been proud to play for hundreds like him.

Imagine

You're a 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 the sound of a helicopter. 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. 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 keeps coming back.... 13 more times..... And takes about 30 of you and your buddies, who would never have gotten out.
Medal of Honor Recipient, Ed Freeman, died recently at the age of 80, in Boise , ID ....... May God rest his soul......I bet you didn't hear about this hero's passing on the news, but we sure were told a whole bunch about some Hip-Hop Coward beating the crap out of his "girlfriend".

This year thousands of pipers will be called out to play at graveside ceremonies. Please take some time and remember what your performance means to the families of those people.

If you are able to read this, thank a teacher.
If you are reading it in English, thank a veteran.