Vietnam War-era Dustoff crews are getting a Congressional Gold Medal, and former medevac pilot Tom Thomas says it’s about time.Thomas will forever remember when one of the first Dustoff crew members died during the Vietnam War. “You can see (he was) 6 foot 3,” Thomas said, pointing to an old photo of a tall man standing next to a helicopter. “He was called Tiny. He had Hollywood good looks.”Sy Simons, or Tiny, was a medic on the U.S. Army’s helicopter air ambulances in Vietnam, whose call signs were DUSTOFF for how the helicopters kicked up dust on the dry countryside. “They went in and landed,” Thomas said. “We have a helmet with a mic on it, and (Tiny) disconnected to go get more wounded, and they didn’t know on board that he had done that, and so they took off without him.” After they had evacuated the wounded to the field hospital, the crew realized they had left Tiny behind. When they went back for him, he had already died on the battlefield.  “So then they changed the rules,” Thomas said. “They said, ‘You can’t disconnect without saying on the mic, I’m disconnecting.”According to Thomas, who moved to Park City in 1989, this ad hoc adoption of rules and procedures was commonplace during his time as a helicopter pilot with the Dustoff crews, who were the first to provide medical attention via helicopter.A Dustoff crew was two pilots, one medic and one crew chief. They were who you trusted to save your life when things went wrong in the line of fire. Now these “angels of mercy,” as they were called, will soon be getting a better-late-than-never Congressional Gold Medal.In May, the U.S. Senate passed S.2825, the Dustoff Crews of the Vietnam War Congressional Gold Medal Act “in recognition of their extraordinary heroism and life-saving actions in Vietnam,” the bill reads. The House passed the legislation in September, and President Biden signed the bill Sept. 26.Dustoff crews pioneered the concept of dedicated and rapid medical evacuation, the bill said, and transported almost 900,000 United States, South Vietnamese and other allied sick and wounded, as well as wounded enemy forces.As one of the Dustoff crews’ helicopter pilots, Thomas operated one and landed them on rough terrain in nearly any weather while medics picked up the wounded. They’d give patients medical attention while Thomas flew them to field hospitals.This required the Dustoff crews to consistently take big risks with combat exposure, Thomas said. For many wounded, the ability to get medical attention within a matter of minutes was the difference between life or death. “You fly eight or 10 hours a day, and you met about 25, 30 people,” Thomas said. “Wow, you’re really tired, but also it’s a great feeling to know that some of them are still alive because (of) what the crew did.” Over his 13 months as a pilot in the war, he flew 866 wounded American soldiers, most likely saving their lives. Thomas has many harrowing stories about his and others’ close calls saving lives. One photo, which was printed in LIFE Magazine at the time, shows Thomas flying his helicopter in the background. This photo, which appeared in LIFE Magazine, shows Tom Thomas flying Dustoff crews in to help medevac wounded infantry in Vietnam. Thomas keeps this copy in a frame. Credit: Clayton Steward/Park RecordThe crews gained great respect during the war for being like angels. Thomas said he’s happy that the crews are finally getting some of the wider recognition they deserve. “I think it’s so great that the crew chief and Medic are being honored,” he said, “because so many times in the past, they were kind of passed over. And so many times we’d go in, they’re pinned down, (a) firefight would start, and so the infantry can’t bring over the wounded. … Who wants to stand up in the field and get shot? (The medics) would disconnect, run across the field, grab the wounded with tracers kicking up … throw them on, and off we’d go. They were the heroes. The bravest guys I’ve ever met were the (Dustoff) medics and crew chiefs.”Some individuals from the crews had received great honors, such as Michael Novosel Sr., who was a Dustoff pilot and received a Medal of Honor, the highest military decoration. Thomas and Novosel were actually copilots at one point. The Army made Thomas an aircraft commander after his first three months in Vietnam. Novosel was just out of flight school, but he had flown bombers in World War II and Korea. He was a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force Reserve and a captain at Southern Airways, and he left to fly helicopters with the Dustoff crews. Thomas was young in comparison to Kelly. He’d gone to ROTC and was commissioned as a second lieutenant. He’d gotten his degree and went to Fort Sam Houston for his basic course, then to flight school and then Vietnam. To be paired up with someone like Novosel shocked him.Tom Thomas flew helicopters as a Dustoff crew member in Vietnam and can be seen in the second photo, top row, middle. President Biden signed into law a bill that will award the crews Congressional Medals for their service in pioneering dangerous air ambulances to save wounded infantry. Credit: Clayton Steward/Park Record“I was flabbergasted,” Thomas said. “(He) flew bombers in World War II, bombers in Korea … And he’s my copilot now. He’s 42, flying bombers. I’m 22 years old.”Still, though some had great recognition — Novosel received the Medal of Honor and Fort Rucker flight school was renamed to Fort Novosel — the crews collectively had until now gone without much acclamation, especially in civilian life, where most people don’t have the personal experience to really appreciate the significance of the crews’ bravery or that they had lived to even tell the tale. “There was no brass band waiting,” Thomas said, “and so I didn’t really want to say anything about it. I just wanted to, you know, go on with my life.”Originally from Minneapolis, Thomas continued his piloting career after his service and worked as a commercial pilot with Eastern Airlines, living in New York and flying with them for 21 years.He finished up his career with Delta and moved to Park City in 1989 for the skiing and biking, he said. Deer Valley hired him to create and maintain the NASTAR course, and he won the national title in 2017.  Thomas said he expects the U.S. Mint is printing up medals now that President Biden has signed the bill into law. However it’s awarded, the medal will commemorate an extremely harrowing time. “They say the two happiest days of your life is the day you buy the airplane and the day you sell it,” Thomas said. “Nothing in my life has given me the satisfaction that I got flying Dustoff medical evacuations in Vietnam. I wouldn’t want to do it again for a million dollars, but I wouldn’t want to trade that feeling for a million dollars either.”The post Former medevac pilot one of many to receive Congressional Gold Medal appeared first on Park Record.