National Memorial Day Concert

One of those Dustoff pilots was Otis Dee Evans.

Born in Brenham, Texas, to a family who'd served in the military since World War I, Otis would go on to receive a Silver Star, two Distinguished Flying Crosses, a Bronze Star, and other commendations.

With us tonight is the son of a decorated U.S. Army Vietnam War veteran, Blair Underwood, who will share Colonel Evans' story.

-I'm a member of a family of six.

My father was a Navy seaman in the Pacific during World War II.

He was proud of his service.

In college, I did four years of Army ROTC.

Must've been good at it 'cause I ended up being cadet brigade commander.

From there, I joined the Army.

I knew at some point, I'd probably end up in Vietnam.

I figured I'd be a medical administrator.

It didn't work out that way.

The Army needed medevac pilots.

I was deployed to Vietnam in '68 and assigned to the 101st Airborne, flying one of their helicopter ambulances.

The Dustoff callsign came from all the dust the rotors would churn up when the choppers landed.

I'd only been with the 101st for about two months when a bunch of us were sent south to fly for the 45th Air Ambulance Company out of Long Binh.

That was a baptism, and I mean with fire.

The war became very real, very quick.

I was confident in my ability, but I'd never flown in combat.

We got a call to pick up a soldier who had a life-threatening chest wound.

While we were on final approach, two rounds came up right underneath my armor-plated seat.

I knew for sure I was hit.

The crew chief flipped the seat back and said, "Don't worry, Lieutenant.

There's no blood.

You're all right," and we went right back in again.

You'd get two, maybe three missions a day like that, picking up people in hot landing zones.

Never knew what you were going to get, so you had to be prepared for anything.

We were never in an area for more than 15 minutes, but it felt like a lifetime.

The first three weeks, the toughest thing was the smell.

I mean, you could see the blood and carnage, but the smell, you never got used to it.

And then you became numb to it, and you just did your job.

The worst thing was to lose a patient in flight.

You never forgot those faces.

It was hard not to wonder, "How are his parents going to take this?"

That's a heavy responsibility.

You didn't leave that kind of environment without some baggage, some scars.

The game changer was picking up the wounded in the field in the middle of a firefight, day or night, in all weather.

We let people know, you got somebody hurt, you need help, you call us.

We won't leave you until we've got you wounded.

That was our Dustoff motto.

There was a time we called the Golden Hour.

When you got somebody out into a hospital within 60 minutes, their chances of survival were pretty good.

That was a great feeling.

For the ground troops, the sound of a rotor blade meant help was on the way.

One day, we had a call to pick up some wounded on the side of a mountain.

Couldn't land because of the cloud cover.

I went back to the fire base, and this one-star general says, "What's the problem, Captain?

Can't do the mission."

I popped right back and said, "Sir, there ain't a mission I can't accomplish."

I flew back and circled back over the area.

Asked the guy on the ground to shoot up a flare.

It came straight up through the clouds and floated down real slow, and I just followed it until I popped out above the trees.

When I got back to the first unit, the sergeant told that story and said, "You know, that Evans is a crackerjack."

Man, when you get to be called a crackerjack, you feel that close to God.

The guys I flew with, we're all comrades.

Just like in ground units, you form friendships, and when someone is lost, you feel the pain.

My closest friend, Captain George Minor, crashed into trees.

Jerry Tyrus Lee got hit by an RPG.

You didn't have a lot of time to mourn because there was always another mission.

Everybody knew what the game was.

Everybody knew that, any day, you might not come back.

It really weighed on you a lot in the last 30 days, when there's a real possibility you might be going home.

Couldn't be sure until you -- until you got what we called the freedom bird.

When those wheels broke ground, baby, that's when the cheers would go up.

On the bird, they briefed us about what we might expect when we got back to the States.

There were people back home who didn't appreciate a lot what we did and what we went through.

Those experiences in Vietnam, I just put them in a trunk, locked that trunk.

My trunk didn't really come open until I visited the Vietnam Memorial Wall in '91.

That brought back a flood of memories.

You think of 58,000 of your brothers gone.

It doesn't hit you until you see the names.

All the things you thought you'd put away just come pouring out.

What you need to know about healing is you have to break that stuff around, try to understand it.

But if you bottle it up and pack it away, you can't deal with it any.

You can't deal with any of it.

I served in the Army for nearly 30 years.

After the flying thing, I got into healthcare administration.

I'm honored to have worked at Walter Reed Military Medical Center.

I'm mostly retired but still working to create museums and memorials to honor the fallen.

When we talk about soldiers, we think about what they achieve instead of why they do what they do.

But once you're in combat, you form a brotherhood.

I fight for you, you fight for me, and if we fight together, we can survive.

Folks paid a high price to put us where we are.

We need to reflect on that.

Memorial Day isn't only a moment for me to look back on my own experience, but to pay homage to those who gave their all.

That Dustoff culture hasn't changed.

It's alive and well, and I am proud... proud to be a part of it.

[ Applause ] [ Applause continues ]