Some families boast generations of teachers, doctors or police officers. But, for the Freeman family, it’s members of the Armed Services.

Tommy Freeman, a Jones County native and Army veteran, takes the time out each Veteran’s Day to remember his father and uncles who served before him.

“There was five boys and four of them served,” he said. “My dad Joe was a Navy veteran. Uncle Pete served in the Army in the South Pacific. Uncle Charles, the baby boy, served in the Air Force in the late 1950s, and then there was Uncle ‘Tud,’ Ed.”

Freeman said the brothers all grew up in Neely, Miss., in Greene County. He noted that he and his brother were quick to follow in their predecessor’s footsteps.

“I wanted to honor my dad and his brothers for everything they did,” he said. “The World War II generation was the ‘Greatest Generation.’ That’s what Tom Brokaw calls them, and I believe that they were. Of course, when my brother got back from Vietnam, he didn’t get such a welcome.”

Freeman said his uncle Ed is the most remembered, and for good reason, his service was memorialized in the book and film, “We Were Soldiers Once... and Young.”

On Nov. 14, 1965, Captain Ed W. Freeman flew 14 separate rescue missions, evacuating 30 wounded soldiers at Landing Zone X-Ray in the Ia Drang Valley of Vietnam. That was in spite of the refusal of medical evacuation helicopters to fly into the area, where soldiers were being bombarded by heavy enemy fire.

Freeman said his uncle, who was also known as Too Tall, never backed away from a challenge.

“The way he got that nickname was because when he wanted to fly helicopters after the Korean War, he was too tall according to Army regulations,” Freeman said. “He had to get a special waiver from the Army to be able to fly.”

Those heroic missions earned Freeman the Congressional Medal of Honor on July 16, 2001, as well as other medals including the Purple Heart.

Freeman noted that it got so bad for his uncle’s unit, 1st Battalion, 7th U.S. Calvary (the same one where General George Custer served), that Lt. Gen. Hal Moore said he “wouldn’t let it be another Battle of Little Big Horn.”

Freeman said he has letters at home that his uncle wrote to his father the day after the historic battle.

“The only thing he said was that ‘Things got pretty hot around here yesterday,’” he said. “He didn’t elaborate too much on it. He liked to tell stories about it, but he wasn’t bragging because it was fact.”

Freeman said that perhaps his uncle’s greatest award came after his death in August 2008. In October, the post office in McLain, Miss., located in Greene County, took on the name of Major Ed W. Freeman. Freeman said it was something spurred on by his family and U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.).

“There’s a display case mounted inside of the post office that has one of his shirts, a bunch of medals, a plaque and a citation,” Freeman said. “Anybody traveling through McLain can stop through there and actually see it.”

Billy Harvison, an alderman in McLain, was the one to propose a resolution to memorialize Freeman after his death, which led to the post office being renamed.

“This was one of the crowning points in my life to the see the post office named in honor of Ed Freeman,” he said. “He’s been my hero from day one. He’s one of the greatest men that I’ve ever known.”

Harvison said Freeman and Jones County native Roy Wheat were the only two Mississippians from the Vietnam War to receive a Medal of Honor.

“Only 18 Missisippians were ever awarded a Medal of Honor since its inception during the Civil War,” he said. “It’s really an achievement. Nobody ever goes out to be awarded a Medal of Honor. It just happens.”

Harvison said it was a challenge familiarizing the people of McLain with Freeman and working through the legislative process.

“I had to educate people on what a Medal of Honor was and the significance of that award,” he said. “It’s the highest military award the U.S. ever awards anybody and can only be awarded by an act of Congress.”

Harvison said there are now only about 90 Medal of Honor recipients living out of the nearly 3,500 awarded since the Civil War. He added that six soldiers who lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan have received the award.

Harvison commended Taylor’s office for keeping him updated throughout the renaming process.

“I never realized what all they do with a bill,” he said. “When it went to the floor, the bill was three to four pages long with why it should be done and the significance of it.”