What It Was Like to Fly a Dustoff Into a Hot LZ at Night

The Army's air ambulances in Vietnam were lost to enemy fire at more than three times the rate of all other helicopter missions. Most of them carried no mounted guns — only red crosses on their doors. By the end, they had carried between 850,000 and 900,000 people. This episode flies one night mission from the first call to the hospital pad: the radio request and the three words that decided it, the aircraft and its four-man crew, getting in at night with the lights off, the seconds on the ground, the race to the surgeons — and what it cost. With Charles Kelly ("When I have your wounded"), Patrick Brady, Michael Novosel and the crews who flew with them. The night mission in 1968 and the scene in the back of the helicopter are composites drawn from many accounts. Every other story is attributed to the record or the man who told it. Did you fly Dustoff, or crew one? Which detachment or company, which year, which call sign? And if you were ever carried out by Dustoff — tell us where, and when. One line is enough. Chapters 0:00 What it was like 0:23 Night, 1968 1:19 Part one: the call 4:21 Part two: the aircraft and the crew 7:58 Part three: getting in at night 8:51 You, in the back of the helicopter 12:14 Part four: on the ground 15:42 Part five: the race to the hospital 18:03 Part six: the cost 20:58 Back to the plywood room 22:00 Your turn Sources Peter Dorland and James Nanney, Dust Off: Army Aeromedical Evacuation in Vietnam (U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1982) Maj. Gen. Spurgeon Neel, Medical Support of the U.S. Army in Vietnam, 1965–1970 (U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1973) Medal of Honor citations: Maj. Patrick H. Brady (6 Jan 1968); CWO Michael J. Novosel (2 Oct 1969); Distinguished Service Cross: Maj. Patrick H. Brady (2–3 Oct 1967) Public Law 118-87, Congressional Gold Medal to the Dustoff crews of the Vietnam War (2024) Patrick Brady, Army Aviation Digest; Military Officers Association of America (2021); Dustoff Association memorial roll The Virtual Wall — SP4 James Richardson, 498th Medical Company (1968) Archival photographs and film: U.S. National Archives (NARA) and U.S. Department of Defense (Army films of the 82nd Medical Detachment and "Shotgun Rider"), public domain; copies via Wikimedia Commons and the Internet Archive. A companion channel to Grunt's Field Notes.