After years of campaigning, a memorial was dedicated this September for the Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association Memorial Monument, which now resides at Fort Rucker, Alabama, where the Army trains helicopter pilots.
During the Vietnam War, 27,000 pilots and 46,000 crew members were trained on Fort Rucker. During the event, there was a Huey helicopter flyover and speeches delivered by Brig. Gen. Ken Cole, who is the deputy commanding general of the U.S. Army Aviation Center of Excellence, and retired Gen. Doug Brown, one of the founding members of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment.
During his speech, Brown named various callsigns that Vietnam era Helicopter pilots flew under, "Warlords, Dragoons, Bulldogs, Cobra Guns, the Famous Flying Circus, Dark Horse, Mustangs, Thunderbirds, Ghostriders, Hill Climbers, Pachyderm, Gladiators, Big Windy, Boxcars, Jolly Green, Nomads, Sea Wolves, Blue Max, the Greyhounds and maybe the most famous of all, Dustoff." Brown said, "You will be proud to know that many of those call signs and those lineages are today around the world, still deployed and have been since September 11, 2001, when they immediately deployed to insert the now famous Horse Soldiers of the Green Berets."
Of the 11,000 helicopters the Army deployed to Vietnam, 5,000 were lost in combat.
"You were the pioneers. You set the bar," Gen. Brown told the Vietnam veterans in attendance. "Today’s aviation force stands on your shoulders."