Born in 1942 into a military family, David Freeman was educated at Bristol Grammar School and commissioned into the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment in 1963. His thirty-year infantry career spanned Germany, Northern Ireland, Africa, Hong Kong, Cyprus, and Oman, where he served during the Dhofar Campaign. He later returned to Oman for eight years, deepening a lifelong bond with the Middle East.

A polyglot, he was a Russian interpreter and fluent in Arabic and he combined military precision with intellectual curiosity and a passion for history and political debate. In retirement he settled in the Olchon Valley, restoring a thirty-five-acre smallholding and indulging his enduring love of model railways.

Married in 1965, he had two sons, both commissioned. He died in 2016.