Nebraska soldier awarded Bronze Star
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Army Maj. Chase A. Freeman, of Ponca City, Nebraska, was awarded a Bronze Star medal of valor Saturday for his role in a firefight following a firefight in Afghanistan on Oct. 10, 2005.
By MATTHEW HANSEN / Lincoln Journal Star
They were friends. Seemed like they always had been.
But Chase wanted more. He wanted to take her to the Ponca City High School Senior Prom. He wanted to date.
So he did what he always does. He squeezed every ounce of himself into convincing Gayla that yes, she should be his girlfriend.
And how could she say no?
This was the kid who’d earned a tennis scholarship on sheer will. A young man who would crowbar tennis practice, construction work and ROTC drills into a single day at East Central University and still keep a near-perfect grade-point average.
A man attracted to the military, just like his dad, just like her dad. Attracted to its series of challenges presented and then overcome when Chase Freeman bent them to his will.
No, no surprises here, not that Chase would marry Gayla and they’d have two children. Not that, on Oct. 10, 2005, he’d find himself in the middle of a firefight in Afghanistan, and not at all surprising that he’d react as he did.
“I asked him, ‘Just once can’t you just be the one to hide in the corner?’” says his wife of 14 years. “But that’s just him.”
Major Chase A. Freeman, United States Army, distinguished himself by exceptional valor under fire ... during combat operations from 10 to 11 October 2005 in vicinity of Bagh-Khosak Village, Uruzgan Province, Afghanistan.
The one-page narrative the Army sends out when it recommends one of its own for a combat medal will have to do, because Major Chase A. Freeman is not interested in elaborating.
He will neither confirm nor deny that he was in fact in the Uruzgan Province on Oct. 10, 2005.
He will not elaborate on the military’s formal descriptions of his actions during a 13-hour period, actions for which he was awarded the Bronze Star medal for valor on Saturday afternoon.
He’s sorry, but he doesn’t want to talk about it. Not at all.
“There was this certain event that happened,” he says. “It happened and I’m honored for it, and I don’t wanna sit here and boast about it.”
While on patrol ... Maj. Freeman and his team were attacked by approximately 150 enemy soldiers from 3 separate ambush positions.
They lit up the Afghan sky with machine-gun fire, and he fired back with his M4 rifle.
They shot rocket-propelled grenades and mortars that fell all around him, and he moved the Afghan National Army soldiers under his command to covered positions, where they could dig in and try to beat back the surprise attack by Taliban and Al-Qaeda sympathizers in the central Afghan province.
It seems safe to assume Freeman had been preparing for this moment for the past 33 years.
He knew he wanted to be a soldier by the time he reached grade school.
He’d listened to his father, a retired sergeant major, and his mother as they drummed lessons about hard work into his skull. If you are going to do something, they said, do it right.
As an active-duty officer, he’d served in Bosnia. As an army reservist company commander he’d wowed his superiors by taking the soldiers in his command and pushing and pulling until he drew unseen ability out of each of them.
Anytime a soldier had a pay problem, a uniform issue, a personal difficulty, Freeman would pick up the phone, often finding the solution before anyone else could see the problem.
“A lot of people say let’s take care of the soldiers like it’s a bumper sticker,” says Sgt. Major Ron Murtaugh, who says Freeman is one of the top three officers he’s met during 24 years in the military.
“With Major Freeman, it’s close to his heart. He’s always thinking about the soldier to the left of him, and the soldier to the right.”
Minutes into the battle, Freeman saw an Afghan National Army soldier seriously wounded and sprinted across an open area to “assist with providing immediate life-saving treatment” the Army report says, using too many syllables to explain that Freeman helped save a young Afghan life.
... Maj. Freeman assessed the situation and realized that because of all the heavy fighting, his ANA soldiers were going to need a re-supply of ammunition. He knew that the only re-supply of ammunition was located in an abandoned truck left at the initial attack position.He could’ve ordered a subordinate to retrieve the truck. Instead, he jumped up and sprinted more than the length of a football field in open terrain. Bullets kicked up dust around his feet, the Army narrative says, just like in the movies.
Once he reached the truck, Freeman climbed inside and drove it right through No Man’s Land, back to where the Afghan soldiers waited for the ammunition.
They fought off the continuing onslaught and then, under Freeman’s command, mounted two attacks of their own.
There is little doubt that Major Freeman’s leadership and personal courage allowed his unit to maneuver on and destroy over 45 enemy personnel during a 13-hour period.
The next time he called Gayla he said something had happened — he couldn’t say what — and told her he loved her.
When he got home to Omaha in February, he hugged his toddler son, Hunter, who’d been just 5 weeks old when he deployed. He hugged his 5-year-old daughter Karsen, a kindergartner.
He told Gayla a little more about what happened Oct. 10, but made it sound matter-of-fact, she says, a series of obstacles to identify and overcome.
It wasn’t until she read the narrative — mortars exploding feet from her husband, and bullets kicking debris onto his uniform — that she understood what her husband had done.
“It was bittersweet,” she said of reading the story attached to her husband’s Bronze Star medal for valor.
“One part of me wanted to say, ‘What were you thinking?’”
“Another part of me wanted to say, ‘I’m proud of you. Congratulations.’”
Reach Matthew Hansen at 473-7245 or mhansen@journalstar.com.
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