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With all due respect to the General I’ll throw the BS flag on a couple of his claims. Mainly Bat-21. Bat 21 was destroyed by a SA-2 surface-to-air missile and Hambleton was the only survivor, parachuting behind the front lines into a battlefield filled with thousands of North Vietnamese Army soldiers. I thought the world of Dustoffs when I at Portcall for 15 months (67-69) (thus Portcall 24) and know how many folks they saved but if they’d have sent Hueys to North Vietnam they would have been scattered all over the country-side. Flying and fighting inside South Vietnam was damn different than going downtown to Hanoi. The second point is in regards to their reputation.

If you’ve read “We Were Soldiers Once and Young” you know where I’m going with this. Here’s a quote from a History Channel article:

“On some occasions the infantry had particularly bad experiences with dustoff crews. William Shucart reported of the Ia Drang battle: “We were trying to get the medevac ships to come in but they would not. A couple of Huey slicks came down but we were taking fire and the medevacs wouldn’t come. When you are taking fire is precisely when you need medevac. I don’t know where those guys got their great reputations. I was totally dismayed with the medevac guys. The Huey slick crews were terrific.”

And here’s the link:

http://www.historynet.com/casualty-evacuation-helicopters-re-evaluating-the-role-of-the-dustoff-in-the-vietnam-war.htm

Having said all of that I’d agree with the General that thousands of young men are alive today or lived wonderful lives because of the sacrifices of the Dust Off crews...but they didn’t do it alone.