Vietnam War medevac helicopter crews will be the latest military group to receive the highest award Congress can bestow. The Dustoff Crews of the Vietnam War Congressional Gold Medal Act won final approval this week.
It honors the estimated 3,000 pilots, medics, and crew who flew between combat zones and field hospitals during the war. The flights were nicknamed “Dustoff” because of the dirt and debris churned up by their helicopter rotors as they landed to pick up wounded. The crew of a helicopter early in the war took the name as their call-sign, according to the Army.
The Dustoffs extracted 900,000 wounded U.S., Vietnamese, and allied soldiers from May 1962 to March 1973. The Army said the medevac crews had a one-in-three chance of becoming casualties themselves.
