Freeman White was born on March 19, 1930, and passed away on November 24, 2024. His lovely wife of 66 years, Wilma, preceded him in death on September 9, 2021. Freeman’s legacy as a Purple Heart recipient is an appropriate story to retell, as this is the season for the Wreaths Across America event.
As the youngest of six brothers who all served in our country in war zones, Freeman signed up for the US Marine Corps in 1948. In December of 1950 he entered active duty — the Korean War had begun in June of that same year. Freeman’s combat training took place at Camp Pendleton, and afterwards he departed for Korea on a transport ship. It landed in Pusan, and from there his group flew north to an airstrip and boarded trucks to trek even farther north. This began his year-long duty in combat.
In fact, combat began as the trucks traveled to their assignments, As the men received mortar shells, they bailed out of their trucks, took cover till firing ceased, then climbed back on board to continue as far as the trucks could go. (Some of these new soldiers actually lost their lives en route to their first duty station.)
Freeman was assigned to Item Co, First Marine Division, 3rd Battalion. In his first battle, he was ordered to affix his bayonet, which he never had to used but said it was there to intimidate. Soon he advanced to the BAR (Browning Automatic Repeating rifle), which is a 30 caliber but fires like a machine gun, maintaining a low profile. He explains that…
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