Vietnam Dustoff Pilot to Be Honored During National Memorial Day Concert

National Memorial Day Concert honors the courageous Army Air Ambulance Units of the Vietnam War with the story of helicopter pilot Col. Otis Evans.

Retired U.S. Army Col. Otis Evans Courtesy of Capital Concerts, Inc.

Co-hosted by Tony Award winner Joe Mantegna and Emmy Award winner Gary Sinise—steadfast champions of veterans’ causes and active service members—the National Memorial Day Concert, airing live on May 25 from the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol, honors the courage, sacrifice, and service of the nation’s military personnel and their families, and pays tribute to all those who have given their lives in defense of the United States.

“Most of us Vietnam guys, because of the circumstances that were going on when we came back, it was not in our best interest to do a lot of talking about where we had gone, what we had seen, and that sort of stuff because there was a whole lot of animosity about that war, so we just didn’t bring it up,” Retired U.S. Army Col. Otis Evans said in an interview with The Epoch Times a few days before he and the courageous Army Air Ambulance Units of the Vietnam War were to be honored at the concert.

At great risk and danger under enemy fire, helicopter pilot Evans and his crew rescued wounded troops in remote locations. Commonly called “Dustoff,” their radio call sign, these life-saving air medevac units are estimated to have evacuated 900,000 casualties during the war.

“We had a job to do and we were gonna do it because if you didn’t do it, you weren’t living up to the standards,” Evans, now 81, said. “We never questioned the mission, we just did it.”

Evans, who comes from a long line of military service—including his grandfather in World War I, his father in World War II, two brothers also in Vietnam, and a son in Iraq and Afghanistan—served 12 of his 27 years in the military as a Dustoff pilot.

He earned a Silver Star, the Distinguished Flying Cross with one oak leaf cluster, a Bronze Star, and the Air Medal with numeral 9. After serving in Vietnam, Evans continued to demonstrate excellence as a Dustoff pilot in the United States, the Republic of Korea, and the Federal Republic of Germany.

It was not the life Evans, who grew up in Brenham, Texas, and attended Prairie View A&M University, had imagined.

“When I went to college my whole goal was to go to the agricultural part of it and come out of there and become a dairy farmer,” he said. “That’s what I really wanted to do.”

The offer of an Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) scholarship—in exchange for four years of active Army service—changed all that. It’s there where the “dedication to an idea or a line of service” took root in him.

“I didn’t grow up thinking that I was going to have a military career. That wasn’t my makeup at that time,” Evans said. “But once I got introduced to it and started to meet and make friends in the organization, and then got thoroughly acquainted with the mission, the natural inclination was to stay there.”