Retired Medevac pilot reflects on 27-year Army career

Medevac’s memories: Retired pilot reflects on 27-year Army career
Harker Heights Herald
Bob Massey
Herald correspondent
March 28, 2014

Retired Col. Otis Evans remembers the very long and harrowing day of Dec. 1, 1968, like it was yesterday. The day began at 4:30 a.m. with a mission to extract a wounded soldier from Vietnam’s trenches.

“We received fire, but it didn’t disable the aircraft. We tried another route in and it was the worst choice we could have made,” he said. His rescue mission suffered a barrage of enemy fire, destroying the tail rotor system of his helicopter and causing the chopper to crash.

Not willing to abandon their mission, Evans and his crew loaded up another helicopter and made another attempt to that same location later in the evening when there was very little action.

Unfortunately, the soldier they were sent to retrieve was dead.

“Regardless, we were still bound and determined to bring the soldier out,” Evans said.
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