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Chicken plates protect the back and chest of the crew chief who is confering with Warrant Officer Charles Colley who is piloting this mission. Despite the dismissive name for body armor, chicken plates were de rigueur haute couture for the well-dressed crew of a helicopter ambulance who often hovered in the midst of enemy fire while evacuating the wounded from the bloody landscape of Vietnam.

A Huey (Hughes Aircraft Helicopter) slick (unarmed) provides our ride for the day's mission. The subject of my film is the 82nd Medical Detachment (Helicopter Ambulance) —hence the 82 painted in the red cross on the nose of the craft—and Chuck's call sign is Dustoff 84.