Welcome Home - A Podcast for Veterans, About Veterans, By Veterans
Welcome Home is a Willing Warriors and the Warrior Retreat at Bull Run project. The program highlights activities at the Warrior Retreat and issues impacting all Veterans. For questions or feedback, please email us at podcast@willingwarriors.org.
Welcome Home - A Podcast for Veterans, About Veterans, By Veterans
Dustoff: The Lifesaving Legacy of Col. Douglas Moore's 1,874 Vietnam Combat Missions
The heroism of Vietnam War helicopter pilots rarely receives the spotlight it deserves, but Colonel Douglas Moore's story stands as a testament to extraordinary courage under fire. With over 1,874 combat missions flown and 2,782 wounded soldiers evacuated during his two tours in Vietnam, Moore's experiences reveal the life-and-death stakes faced by Dustoff pilots daily.
Moore's journey began when he transitioned from fixed-wing aircraft to helicopters as the Vietnam conflict escalated in 1964. As a Medical Service Corps officer, his sole mission became rescuing wounded soldiers from active combat zones—a dangerous task that routinely placed him in the crosshairs of enemy fire. The term "Dustoff" itself became their permanent call sign, ensuring wounded soldiers could always reach medical evacuation regardless of changing military call signs and frequencies.
The podcast captures several breathtaking moments from Moore's career, including the mission that earned him the Distinguished Service Cross. Despite taking heavy enemy fire that sent a bullet through his thumb and another striking his flight helmet between his eyes, Moore maintained enough control of his damaged helicopter for his co-pilot to safely evacuate them and their wounded passengers. Perhaps most remarkable was his special mission to retrieve three American POWs from North Vietnamese forces near the Cambodian border - an operation that remained classified for years.
Moore's reflections offer profound insights into military service: "If there was any such thing as having a good job in combat, I had one." His impact extends far beyond the individuals he rescued, creating generational ripples as those saved went on to build families and futures. For listeners interested in military history, combat medicine, or stories of exceptional courage, Colonel Moore's firsthand account provides a rare glimpse into one of warfare's most dangerous yet life-affirming roles.
Discover the full story in Colonel Moore's memoir "A Bullet Through the Helmet: A Vietnam Dustoff Pilot's Memoir," with proceeds benefiting the Huey Museum in Peru, Indiana - preserving the legacy of these remarkable aircraft and the brave pilots who flew them.
Good morning. I'm your host, Larry Zilliox, Director of Culinary Services here at the Warrior Retreat at Bull Run. Today we have our co-host, John Wall, Welcome, John, thank you, Larry. Retired Navy. He's joining us.
Larry Zilliox:And our guest today is retired Army Colonel Douglas Moore. And Colonel Moore has a pretty remarkable career in the Army spanning 30 years. Pretty remarkable career in the Army spanning 30 years. And I just I normally I leave it up to the guests to talk about their career and what they did while they were in the service, but I'm just going to read you a few things from his bio so we don't miss anything.
Larry Zilliox:So number one he did two tours in Vietnam as a combat Dustoff helicopter pilot and we're going to talk a little bit well, actually we're going to talk quite a bit about what dust-off is and the pilots who flew it and what it meant to the guys on the ground in Vietnam. But while he was there, in his two tours he flew over 1,874 combat missions and evacuated 2,782 patients. He also piloted a helicopter that recovered three American POWs from the North Vietnamese in a pretty sensitive mission along the Cambodian border. In between his tours he organized a unit in Japan that was responsible for transporting more than 63,000 casualties out of the Vietnam the combat theater and back to the States for treatment. He commanded the 307th Medical Battalion in the 82nd Airborne, so I'm assuming he was forced to jump out of good airplanes and he also commanded the 62nd Medical Group at Fort Lewis, which is in Washington, and at that time, during his time there, he was the air mission commander for a very large rescue mission following the eruption of Mount St Helens.
Larry Zilliox:Some of our listeners might be too young to remember that, but it was quite an event to see the half of that Mount St Helens just disappear in an explosion. Lot of people in the area hiking and camping that needed to be rescued and a number of joint services stepped up and affected a lot of rescues. During his time there in the Army, his 30 years he received a Distinguished Service Cross, the Distinguished Service Medal, the Distinguished Flying Cross, bronze Star and a Purple Heart, and then, in February of 2004, he was introduced to the Dustoff Hall of Fame. So, colonel, we can't thank you enough for joining us. Welcome to the podcast.
Larry Zilliox:Thank you so much Happy to be here, Larry, so I wanted to start by talking about when you decided to join the Army, and did you enter the Army with the idea you wanted to?
John Wall:fly? The answer to that is yes. When I graduated from college, I took ROTC, like it was mandatory, the first two years in college in those days, and you could take the second two years and if you did you could obtain a commission and I was commissioned a second lieutenant. I always wanted to fly and I had an opportunity to go to flight school, so I took it.
Larry Zilliox:And was it in flight school that you were assigned to fly helicopters, or did you get to pick the aircraft that you wanted to?
John Wall:fly. I was first sent to fixed-wing school because the Army was looking at buying something that later on was called a Caribou aircraft, a twin-engine airplane. Because they knew in those days if the Russians were to come across the border there in Germany, they couldn't get enough hospitals on the continent to take care of them. So they planned to put the hospitals in England. So they were looking at buying this twin-engine, fairly large fixed-wing airplane to haul casualties off the continent over to England. So I was sent to fixed-wing school. But this was 1964 when the buildup really began in Vietnam. So they said, hey God, we need somebody to go to Vietnam. So I went to a short transition course to learn how to fly helicopters and went to Vietnam in September of 64.
Larry Zilliox:And when you were on your way to Vietnam, did you know you were going to be a dust-off pilot?
John Wall:Yes.
Larry Zilliox:Okay, so that was something you volunteered for or were assigned.
John Wall:No, I was assigned to a branch in the Army called Medical Service Corps and we were the dust-off pilots or the medevac pilots.
Larry Zilliox:Okay. So for our listeners, so they understand what dust-off is is that when you are in a combat theater and you're a casualty wounded, there's a couple of ways that you get out. You either walk out on your own. You get out on your own, you catch a ride on some sort of aircraft. Could be a C-130 that's coming into a forward operating base.
Larry Zilliox:It could be any helicopter, it could be a helicopter that's faring supplies or other soldiers and then picks up wounded and then its mission turns into a medevac mission at that point when they get wounded on board. Or it could be dust off, and dust off's sole mission is to be on alert and be ready to go in and to pick up wounded in the field. That's their sole purpose. They're not running ammunition here, they're not doing this and that, and Dustoff continues today in conflicts. It was active in Iraq and Afghanistan and there are a whole association at Dustoff Pilots, and we're just so thankful that you're here to tell us about your amazing story and being inducted into the Dustoff kind of Hall of Fame. What was that like in 2004?
John Wall:Oh, I was very appreciative of that. You know a lot of good guys were there and you're correct on patients being moved. But people have asked me many times what does the word dust-off mean? It came about because in those early days in 1954, there were no American combat units in Vietnam. It was just strictly advisory elements little three and four-man teams out all over the country and a half-dozen special forces units along the Cambodian and Laotian borders.
John Wall:So and you formerly military guys will understand this the military in its wisdom used to change the call signs and radio frequencies every month. So these guys who are hundreds of miles out in the country might not get the most recent frequency or call sign. So our commander went to the high ups there in Saigon and said, hey, we're not going to have somebody die because they can't get the right frequency or the right call sign. So we were the first unit to be awarded a permanent call sign and it's still being used, as you suggested today, and the frequencies may change but the call sign has always been the same for medevac.
Larry Zilliox:Yeah, and part of that, too, comes from if you've ever been around a Huey in particular. Not only are they incredibly loud, but they make a lot of dust when they land and they take off, and dust off kind of came I think about by the fact that you know you really do have to shield yourself when they're around and they're either coming in or they're taking off. Especially, you get to Vietnam, you're assigned, you get your helicopter. What's your first mission like?
John Wall:My first mission that I remember was a night mission. My roommate at that time and I went out on it. It was about 80 miles south of Saigon. Where we went, we had been told that a Navy unit had been attacked where the Brownwater Navy operated down in the Mekong Delta area. When we got there we found out there were no Americans on the ground. The only American that had been there had gotten in a boat with his Vietnamese counterpart and they were about five miles away. The little village had been destroyed and the compound where they were had been overrun.
John Wall:And my roommate was a crazy guy who went on to win the Medal of Honor during his second tour. But he landed right alongside the compound and we started taking tracer fire from two different directions going right past us, and I didn't know what to do. That was one of my first missions. I looked over at Pat. Pat Brady was his name and he used to chew tobacco. He used to have a big chew of tobacco in his jaw. Here all the time he's spitting out the window, not paying any attention to the bullets going by. So I learned right then that you know you might as well just sit there and relax because you're going to let the bullets go by you until they get all the wounded loaded, and that became our mantra from then on.
Col. Moore:Well, okay, well, so first of all, thanks, colonel, for being here, and you know it's just amazing to sit beside someone like yourself, who had gone through a lot, and I bet that took a lot of nerves, of steel to just sit there huh, Sometimes it did yeah.
Col. Moore:Yeah, so that's an incredible story there. Do you have another mission that really stuck out to you? Because from reading you know, from Larry, reading your bio, I mean 1,874 combat missions, 2,782 patients and three POWs you recovered. That's significant, that's amazing. We us me and Larry and this organization and, I assume, all the Americans out there that's just very impressive and that's very honorable and we really appreciate what you did. So is there one thing, another one that might have stuck out to you?
John Wall:I can tell you about when I was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, which was next to the Medal of Honor. We got a call about noontime one day that a unit had a wounded man. 2nd of the 12th Infantry Battalion was part of the 25th Infantry Division that we were supporting, and this is my second tour. So we flew out there and the company commander told us he couldn't secure a landing zone, that they were under too heavy a fire for us to come in. So I said well, we'll orbit out here about 10 miles away until you can call us in. So we orbited just for a little bit and he came back on the air and said hey, dustoff, my medic told me this guy's going to die unless you can get him out. We'll suppress as best we can if you'd be willing to come in. I said we're on the way. So we went in and landed and started taking hits right away and we saw two Viet Cong jump up out of a foxhole or a spider hole about 100 yards away and they fired a rocket propeller grenade at us and fortunately it hit a limb on a tree in front of us and exploded and all it did was just break out one corner of our windshield. But then at 7 o'clock that night we went back and they had four wounded and we just got the hex out of us during that mission to get them out. And then another at midnight for the same unit. And then at four o'clock the next morning we got a call back and when we took off from Coochee, where I was stationed about 35 miles north of Saigon, we could see flares in the distance and artillery exploding. See flares in the distance and artillery exploding.
John Wall:And so when we called, the battalion commander of this unit was flying in a command and control helicopter over the battlefield and he said both of his units, both of his companies had consolidated but they were about to get overrun. And he said we're firing artillery to the east and to the south, so the only way you can come in is come in from the west and go back out to the west. I said, okay, shut down the flares so I can land. And at first he refused. He said his units were under heavy attack and he wouldn't shut the flares down. So by that time I was a brash young major on my second tour. So I said, hey, it won't do any good for me to get shot down on landing or on takeoff. So shut the flares down and let me land and I'll call you when I'm on the ground and you can start the flares up again. So he finally reluctantly agreed and I went in.
John Wall:I turned all the lights off when the helicopter went in and I got down to the bottom I hit my landing light and I saw this little tiny clearing in the jungle with a road running along one side of it and there were wounded scattered all along that road. So I landed kind of in the middle of where the wounded were and he started the flares up again. I told him we were on the ground. He started the flares up again and we started taking hits. I could hear bullets hitting the tail, boom back in the back and then they were coming up the back of the engine compartment behind me and we finally got loaded. We picked up eight wounded and I called him and said we're loaded now. How about shutting the flares down, let me take off? And this time he refused. He said my unit's under heavy attack so I won't shut the flares down. So we lifted up.
John Wall:Just as I cleared the top of the trees there were just sheets of tracers coming up underneath us striking the bottom of the helicopter. There were just sheets of tracers coming up underneath us striking the bottom of the helicopter and a round came up through my left knee here and hit the collective lever and regressated off and split my left thumb open and that hurt like heck. Then I heard this blood-curdling scream right behind me and my medic said one of our patients had been hit in the back and it killed him. Then another round came through the windshield down here on the right corner where the windshield bolts in the frame and hit my flight helmet right between my eyes and came out behind my left ear back here. And when it did it brought a handful of metal and plexiglass out from down there and went primarily into my left eye.
John Wall:It's let my nose open here and chipped out of place up here on my head full of metal and plexiglass out from down there and went primarily into my left eye. It's let my nose open here and chipped out of place up here on my head and placed back here in the back of my head and I threw the stick. My head flew back and I hit the back of the seat and that hurt too, but I threw the stick and I jammed the right pedal all the way to the floor and I pulled the collective lever, which is the thing that makes the helicopter go up and down. I jerked it all the way to the top and we rolled over in a right turn and I managed to look back down and I saw the instrument panel and I could see our attitude indicator there. We were in a downward path, headed for the ground, about 100 feet away.
John Wall:So I centered the stick real quick and centered the pedals and jerked in some power to start climbing again and by that time my co-pilot had gotten on the controls and got us out of there. But for some reason I shut my left eye and I could still see the instrument panel clearly. But when I switched and closed my right eye, all I could see was just a dull glow. So I knew something had happened to me and my co-pilot fortunately flew us back to Coochie, where I was in the hospital for a few days while they picked all that metal and plexiglass out of my eye.
Larry Zilliox:And was that the end of your tour there, or did you keep flying?
John Wall:I spent five days in the hospital. They kept me in a neurology clinic because they thought that I had been knocked unconscious and if I had, then my flying days would have been over. But every day they would take me over to another hospital that had an ophthalmologist and he would take an 80-gauge needle and go in and pick all those pieces out of my eye. After five days they sent me back to my unit and the flight surgeon told me I was grounded for three weeks but a mission came in to pick up some prisoners that were being released by the North Vietnamese. So I went back to flying two weeks later.
Larry Zilliox:And was that your mission? To pick up three POWs? Yes, wow. So for our listeners, I want them to understand when you were talking about the commander on the ground, whose forces were being overrun or close to being overrun, the flares that you were talking about were actually the flares that they were setting off on the ground to give them visibility as to where the enemy was coming towards them, because at nighttime the jungle is pitch black. You can't see three feet in front of you, and without those flares they would be on top of the American GIs in an instant. So that's what. When the colonel's talking about the flares going up, that's what they were for. They weren't signaling where they were at. Flares going up, that's what they were for. They weren't signaling where they were at. They were actually giving them visibility to the enemy so they could, you know, counter the attack.
John Wall:Yeah, these were being dropped from a C-130, though An Air Force C-130 was flying over and there were parachute flares, they'd kick them out and they would burn forever coming down.
Larry Zilliox:Yeah.
John Wall:And he was on a command-and-control helicopter flying over the battlefield.
Larry Zilliox:Yeah, coming down, and he was on a command-and-control helicopter flying over the battlefield.
John Wall:Yeah, it does light up the entire— oh the whole area.
Larry Zilliox:The whole area is lit up for, you know, 10 minutes as these things float down.
John Wall:Right.
Larry Zilliox:Tell us about the mission to pick up these three POWs? Why were they being released?
John Wall:I got called over to the Chief of Staff, the 25th Infantry Division Chief of Staff's office, like I said, two weeks after I got back from being wounded and he said they'd gotten a message from Paris that the North Vietnamese intended to release some prisoners of war on Christmas Day 1968. And they had demanded that a medevac ship pick them up, not another aircraft but a medevac ship. So I told him I could fly the mission. He said you just got out of the hospital. I said well, I can go, I'll get back on flying status in a heartbeat. So I ran to the flight surgeon and he put me back on flying status and we went up on Christmas Day and nothing ever happened. We waited, and, waited, and waited and when nighttime came we were sent home. Then a couple of days later, three days later, we found out they were going to be released on the 1st of January of 1969. So we went to a place called Tainan, about 40 miles north of where I was at Coochie, and about three o'clock in the afternoon a State Department guy came out and said they're going to lease them and here's the coordinates for you to go to. And I said you know how? Will we know where to land and they said we don't know, these are just the coordinates given.
John Wall:So we took off and flew across the jungle tops for about 50 miles, headed into Cambodia, and as we were approaching the Cambodian border we saw a North Vietnamese flag flying in a little tiny jungle clearing in the jungle. So I told the guys to back us. I said that's probably it. Let's land and see what happens. So we landed in a little clearing that was not much bigger than your house here and there was nobody else there other than us and the flag.
John Wall:And we sat there for probably 10 minutes and we looked and up in the jungle, eight North Vietnamese soldiers, heavily armed soldiers, come marching out of the jungle and they formed a semicircle around us, took their weapons off and held them in front of their chest and just glared at us from about 10 feet away. And we sat there for probably another 20 minutes and we saw some movement up in the jungle there and I saw what appeared to be three Americans in lighter colored uniforms. Now, one of them was a black guy and he was stumbling along as if he could barely walk. So I told the crew chief who was sitting in the back, I said jump out, rob, and see what these guys, these soldiers, do, and if they don't do anything, go help that guy. So he jumped out and they didn't do anything. So he went charging up through the jungle, got this guy's arm over his shoulder and brought him back to the helicopter.
John Wall:And when they got there, the commander of this North Vietnamese unit stopped everybody about 15 yards away and he began reading all kinds of proclamations. And then we saw another group of probably 20, what appeared to be civilians coming out of the same jungle. And when they finally got there, most of them had cameras or video devices of some sort. So the North Vietnamese commander of this unit made them load our POWs, one at a time, and they took pictures of them as they got on board. And when we finally had them on board we flew them to Long Bend, about 80 miles away, and we were excised.
John Wall:Nobody would talk to us about the mission. We were told it was top secret, don't say anything to anybody about it. And I didn't even know what happened until 15 years later when I went to the War College and I managed to get all the classified documents from Paris and from the CIA and other agencies who had been involved in those negotiations but they were released, for they were being released for propaganda purposes, sure, trying to affect the anti-war group back here in the United States at the time, which was very active, as you remember.
Larry Zilliox:Yeah, talk about your final mission in vietnam, the last one you did before before you. It was turned your turn to rotate out. You were short, I'm sure, and you're thinking, you know, I only got one or two more to go. Okay, you're counting the days and counting the bullets, and so what was that like?
John Wall:I remember that one very well. One of my young war officers and I were flying together and just about dark this humongous rainstorm started out on the Cambodian border, moving towards us, and about 8.30 to 9 o'clock the bottom of the sky fell out and the rain began crashing down. So we got a call that there were eight wounded about 40 miles north of us. So we took off and got to about 500 feet with all that wood could get to get out there, and I called this guy on the ground and I asked him our typical question was what's your situation and what direction do you want us to come in from? And he said we have negative contact at this time. He said we've got into some booby traps and he said I've had eight wounded come in from the west. And he said unfortunately I can't find a parking, I mean a landing place for you. He said you'll have to find some place to land and then we'll work our way out to your aircraft.
John Wall:So we flew over the place and didn't see his light and he called me and said hey, dustoff, you just went past us, we think, but we didn't see you. So I said okay, let me circle back around. And we finally found it. He had a little red lens flashlight he was showing and we went in to land and when I turned on my landing line I saw a clearing and a little small rice paddy about 200 yards away. And we landed in that rice paddy and I told him we were on the ground, didn't know where he was, all we could see there was heavy jungle all around us and we didn't know whether we'd landed in the middle of an enemy unit night position or what.
John Wall:And we sat there for probably 15 minutes or so and finally my crew chief said hey, I see some movement coming our way from the east and they brought out four guys, five guys. And the guy on the ground called me and said hey, dostov. He said we've got some wounded over on the other side of this woods before we're at. And he said can you come over there and pick them up? He said I can't move out of my area right now and I said okay. He said I apologize, but he said I think there's a clearing to my southeast, if you can find it. And I said, okay, I'll try that. And he said oh, by the way, I can't move because I think I stepped on a booby trap.
John Wall:He said it didn't go off, but I can feel the wire under my feet and I said stay where you're at. So we went over and we found another tiny clearing where we got in and sat there for about 15 minutes before they could make way to the aircraft, with another six patients. And I called him and I said do you want us to wait? And he said, dustoff, I'd sure appreciate it. And we sat there, rain pouring down, and we fully expected to see if he moved his foot, that we'd see an explosion, a flash of light and a booby trap explode. But after waiting what seemed like forever, he finally said hey, dustoff, I'm okay. Thanks a lot for your help and God bless you. So that was my last mission of sort.
Col. Moore:That's good that it ended that way. I'm glad to hear a good story out of that, because we know from all the stories and accounts it's not always that way. So thanks for sharing that. I appreciate that Out of your 30 years of service to our great country here. What would you like our listeners to know that's out there, just in general? And two, if someone was thinking a young generation was thinking about being a helicopter pilot, what would be your advice to them?
John Wall:Okay generation was thinking about being a helicopter pilot. What would be your advice to them? Okay, I spent 30 years, one month and one day, in the military, and I came in because there were no jobs available when I was a young guy, but I loved it. If anybody can put up the moves that occur all the time and I don't know how many times we moved every two years, I guess during those 30 years but I enjoyed every move that I made and the opportunities for people. We even now have women or female helicopter pilots, a general officer and I helped the first lady get into Army flight school.
John Wall:You know, 50 years ago now, I guess, but now we've got general officer, female pilots, yes, and it's a great career. You know, if you want to do like you did, john, something for your country, I mean, where could you find a better job than that? All those patients I picked up, I'm convinced that some of them went on living or had limbs saved or eyes saved, because my crew and I could get him in and get him to medical care fairly quickly. So if there was any such thing as having a good job in combat, I had one.
Larry Zilliox:Yeah, indeed, there's very few jobs that make that much of a difference and an impact on so many people. Because you think about somebody that you save, they go on to have a family Right and they go on to have grandkids.
John Wall:Yes.
Larry Zilliox:And those grandkids might find the cure for cancer. You're right, you just don't know, and so you have that ripple effect. When you talk about the number of patients over 20, what is it? 4,700?
John Wall:Yeah, 11,000 total. I flew yeah.
Larry Zilliox:Yeah. So that's an incredible way to make a difference and you know we really can't thank you enough for sitting down with us here and telling us all about it. And one thing I do want to tell our listeners about is I want you all to go to Amazon and get a copy of the Colonel's book. It's a bullet through the helmet a Vietnam dust-off pilot's memoir. I just ordered my copy and it'll be here on Wednesday and I'm taking it to the beach on Saturday, so I can't wait to get it and to read it. And, um, listen, thank you so much for sitting down with us and telling us all about your career, which was an amazing career, and about dust off and the unbelievably heroic pilots who flew these dust-off missions in Vietnam and saved so many lives because they were able to get soldiers to treatment quickly and it just made such a huge difference. So, colonel, thank you so much for joining us.
John Wall:My pleasure and thank you, and I get nothing from the book. You mentioned all the proceeds and that goes to a Huey Museum that's up in Peru, indiana. So if you're ever up in Peru Indiana sometime, stop by and take a look at the museum that's there.
Larry Zilliox:Wow, austin didn't know about that, oh, okay. Well, I don't know when I'll be in Indiana again, but that's awesome. Well, listeners, if you're in Indiana or Illinois and you want to go, really take a look at some real American history. These Hueys were the backbone of the troops in Vietnam. They ferried soldiers out to the field, they brought supplies, they rescued wounded.
Larry Zilliox:They, you know, today it's the Blackhawks and but back then it was the Hueys and it's uh, uh, having flown in them, uh, it's a't hear anything, but really they're, they're amazing and it was just so great having you, colonel. Thank you so much.
John Wall:Thank you, sir.
Larry Zilliox:Yeah, an honor, yeah, real honor For our listeners. We'll have another episode next Monday morning at 0500. You can find us on all the major podcast platforms. We're also on YouTube and Wreaths Across America Radio. So thanks for listening.
