by Bob Sparrow
Warrant Officer Dale Barnes
I recently read the novel, The Women, by Kristin Hannah, which is a #1 bestseller and an excellent read about a woman who volunteers for the Army as a nurse and joins other women nurses in Vietnam during the war. These women were on the receiving end of those MedEvac helicopters that delivered the wounded soldiers to the closest mobile hospital. It got me thinking about my brother-in-law, Dale Barnes, who was one of those helicopter pilots delivering those wounded soldiers. When I was back in Minnesota for his mom’s 98th birthday, I had a chance to sit down with him and have him talk about his Vietnam experience.
Dale joined the Army in May 1969, enlisting for helicopter training, as he was always fascinated with helicopters from watching them as a boy on the family’s farm in Minnesota. He started his basic training in Fort Polk, Louisiana, then went for basic flight training at Fort Walters, Texas, and then to Fort Rucker, Alabama for advanced flight training, where he earned his wings. He was then sent to Fort Sam Houston, Texas for medical training, as everyone in a rescue helicopter needed to know basic medical procedures.
In August of 1970, he was deployed to Chu Lai, Vietnam, where he was initially a co-pilot on a UH-1H (Huey) helicopter doing MedEvac operations, which meant flying into combat zones, with no gun on board, only a red cross on the chopper, that the Viet Cong ignored. He soon moved up to the pilot position, with a crew on the Huey consisting of a pilot, a co-pilot, a medic, and a crew chief (sort of a handyman, maintenance guy, who could hopefully fix things that got damaged on the aircraft).
The term given to these pilots was ‘Dust Off Pilot’; DUST OFF was the ‘call sign’ that came from the very first Evac helicopter unit, the 57th Medical Detachment, Medical
Services Corps, U.S. Army.
Dale’s UH-1H “Huey”
If you Google ‘Dust Off Pilot’ here’s what you get:
“During the Vietnam War, 90 Dust Off pilots were killed and nearly 380 were wounded; 121 crew members were killed and 545 were wounded. To be a Dustoff crew member was to accept a 1 in 3 chance of being killed or wounded. Yet everyone who volunteered to fly these missions of mercy accepted the grim odds”
Wow!!! After I read that, I thanked Dale again for his service!
Most of the time when they were called in to pick up the wounded, they were escorted by gunship helicopters that went in before them to help quell any enemy fire. But, gunships weren’t always available, so the pilot would have to ask his crew if they still wanted to go in, as they could say ‘No’ and they would not go in. Dale says there were a number of occasions when they didn’t have gunships go in before them, and everytime he asked his crew if they still wanted to go in to pick up wounded soldiers, they always said ‘Yes’.
I asked ‘Chopper’ (Dale’s call sign) about a typical day in the life of a Dust Off pilot in Vietnam during the war. He said there really wasn’t a ‘typical day’, as one day you may have a
‘Jungle Penetration’ pick up
clear landing zone, without enemy fire, so it’s a routine pick-up, but that rarely happened. A typical ‘day’, might be at night, when they always flew ‘dark’ (no lights at landing), no GPS, all visual flying. Or they might be asked to do a ’Jungle Penetration’ pick up, where there is no landing zone, so the helicopter hovers over the trees and lowers a long cable with three seats on it for pickup of men who did not need to be on a stretcher and could hold on to the cable while being lifted into the helicopter. Dale estimates that during the year he was in Vietnam, he flew about 750 missions! During that time, he was shot at all the time, but his helicopter was never shot down and he was never injured. He says he’s most proud of never recieving a Purple Heart! His closest call was when he had a bullet fly about a foot over his head and rattle around in the cockpit.
Dale, as civilian Medivac pilot
After his tour of duty, he came back to the states and remained in the Army the next 20 years doing various jobs – being a flight instructor, flying VIPs around, as well as tours of duty in Japan and Germany. After retiring from the service, Dale became an AirEvac pilot in civilian life – doing that for the next 24 years!
There’s an old pilot adage that says, “You always want your number of landings to equal your number of takeoffs.” In just over 45 years of flying a helicopter, Dale flew over 12,000 hours WITHOUT AN ACCIDENT and without being injured!
Thank you for your service, Dale, for saving countless lives, both military and civilian!