Leigh Freeman met Rick Thomas at the Omaha induction center in November 1969. The two trained together at Fort Ord and stayed together all the way to Charlie Company at Camp Evans. On May 7, 1970, they flew together from the Camp Evans pad to Firebase Ripcord on a slick. When they stepped off the helicopter, they were assigned to 1st Platoon and Sergeant Burl Ives’ squad. Rick became the M-60 machine gunner and Leigh his assistant gunner.
Their bunker assignment was already manned by 1st Platoon RTO John Harvey, also from Omaha, who had been with Charlie Company since December 1969. For the next 30 days, John was their go-to man for learning how to survive in the jungle.
On Ripcord, the days were spent stringing concertina wire along the main fence and laying tanglefoot — without gloves. They helped build a bunker and fighting position next to the TOC, where daily they watched the 105mm artillery fire and Cobra gunships put rockets and minigun fire onto the slopes of Hill 902.
On May 13th, the three platoons of Charlie Company left Ripcord by helicopter. The heat on the new LZ was brutal — within 100 yards of landing, five soldiers were medevaced for heat exhaustion. Over the next three weeks, Charlie Company under Captain Isabelino Vasquez humped up and down the jungled hills, visiting abandoned firebases Granite and Gladiator.
The jungle was relentless. Dense bamboo groves, wait-a-minute vines with thorns that wrapped around your neck and stopped you cold, elephant grass seven to eight feet tall with razor-sharp leaves, ringworm, leeches, and jungle rot. When the rot became infected it turned to cellulitis — swelling, headaches, fatigue. When Leigh’s right leg swelled to twice its size, the medic told him: “Drive on, troop.”
Squad leader Burl Ives had a bamboo shoot rip out the seat of his jungle trousers early in the tour. Since Burl didn’t wear underwear, his situation was visible to anyone walking behind him on the steep mountain trails. For a week, Leigh and Rick argued every day about who was going to hump behind Burl — until resupply finally brought him new trousers.
At a standown in early June, while waiting for a shower at Camp Evans, a soldier from Alpha Company told Leigh the news about Willie Norris — a friend from Basic Training and Infantry Training at Fort Ord who had come with them all the way to the 101st. On June 3rd, Willie had volunteered to walk point at the foot of Hill 1000 and was almost immediately killed by NVA rifle fire. Leigh found Rick and told him. They were devastated. It was not the last time the faces around them would change.
On July 21st, Charlie Company conducted a combat assault to Hill 805 to provide LZ security while Delta 2/506 helped evacuate the wounded from Delta 1/506, which had been repelling NVA forces on the hill for nearly a week. Near the end of the flight, Burl Ives pointed out red smoke on the Hill 805 LZ. Red smoke means the LZ is under attack. He told his squad where to meet him the moment they were off the bird.
Before the helicopter could touch down, they leaped out and ran. Leigh immediately tripped on a log and face-planted. When he looked up, there was an NVA helmet a foot in front of his face. He thought about taking it as a souvenir — then thought it might be booby-trapped — and ran for the tree instead. Seconds later another squad member rolled into position waving the same helmet.
The NVA hit them with tear gas. A few men panicked and jumped up. Burl commanded them to take the gas and hold their positions. The gas dispersed. As darkness fell, Second Platoon Leader Lieutenant Campbell placed a strobe light in the center of the LZ so the slicks could find them. The helicopters came in one at a time, every 20 minutes, while the strobe blinked and lit up their position for anyone watching from the surrounding hills. Each bird lifted out fewer men, until only seven remained. They got out safely. Leigh was on the next to last bird out.
After Ripcord was evacuated, Leigh had become what counted for an old timer with just three months in country — so many soldiers he had known were dead or wounded. On July 30th, when Charlie Company made its first combat assault back into the jungle, his platoon leader Lieutenant Leibecke asked Leigh to walk point off the LZ. He walked point for 1st Platoon for the next two months, including a midnight hump down a triple-canopy mountain hillside until dawn.
In October, the platoon came across several NVA minefields. Casualties mounted. By November, Leigh had reached his limit with the jungle and transferred to Echo Company to do the job he, Rick, and Willie had originally been trained for: mortars. Around March 1st, 1971, he boarded the Freedom Bird for home.
“As the bird flew, I couldn’t help but remember all the missing faces.”
The years after Vietnam were hard. Panic attacks, depression, anxiety, and nightmares followed Leigh home to Omaha and stayed for decades. A VA doctor told him they would eventually go away. He was wrong. Leigh self-medicated in the ways many veterans of that era did, none of which helped.
He went to college off and on for eight years and earned a BA in English. Over the following decades he drove laundry trucks, sand and gravel trucks, UPS trucks, and school buses. He worked in retail, lumber yards, and bookstores. He traveled the country selling chemicals to auto body shops. He eventually earned a teaching certificate at Kansas State University and a master’s degree at the University of Kansas, teaching high school and college English in Kansas City.
He married Vicki and had two children, Erica and David. He worked more than 20 jobs over 40 years. In 2010 he moved back to Omaha, took early Social Security, and eventually received 100% disability from the VA. Today he stays busy performing funeral honors with the VFW Honor Guard — making sure other veterans are sent off with the respect they deserve.
