U.S. Army air ambulance crews that operated in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War will receive the Congressional Gold Medal for their heroic, life-saving military service.

Efforts to secure the medal, Congress’ highest award, were launched years ago, and they were supported by the Association of the U.S. Army. The House of Representatives passed the legislation in September after it had been passed by the Senate in May. The President signed it into law on Sept.26.

The “Dustoff Crews of the Vietnam War Congressional Gold Medal Act” recognizes the pilots, crew chiefs and medics who “served honorably during the Vietnam War aboard helicopter air ambulances,” the legislation says.

The helicopter crews are credited with the evacuation of about 900,000 people—American troops and Vietnamese and allied forces—from 1962 to 1973.

Helicopters were used for medical evacuation in the closing months of World War II and during the Korean War, but air medical evacuation became widely used during the Vietnam War, with so-called dustoff crews dedicated to missions of rapidly transporting the wounded to field hospitals. It was dangerous work, with a high rate of air crew casualties and loss of aircraft.

“Highly skilled and intrepid, Dustoff crews were able to operate the helicopters and land them on almost any terrain in nearly any weather to pick up wounded,” the Gold Medal Act says. “The vital work of the Dustoff crews required consistent combat exposure and often proved to be the difference between life and death for wounded personnel.”

The dustoff crews were a “great group of men,” the late Army Chief of Staff Gen. Creighton Abrams Jr. said in 1972. “Courage above and beyond the call of duty was sort of routine to them. It was a daily thing, part of the way they lived.”

Photo by: DoD