Dust Off Brewing Co.

OUR NAME

According to DUSTOFF.ORG, “The call sign “DUSTOFF” comes from the radio call sign given to the first aeromedical helicopter evacuation unit in Vietnam, the 57th Medical Detachment (Hel Amb), which arrived in-country in 1962. The 57th initially communicated internally on any vacant frequency it could find. In Saigon, the Navy Support Activity, which controlled all call words used in call signs in South Vietnam, allowed the 57th to adopt the call sign DUSTOFF. This call sign epitomized the 57th’s medical evacuation missions. Since the countryside was then dry and dusty, helicopter pickups in the fields often blew dust, dirt, blankets, and shelter halves all over the men on the ground. Nearly all evacuation helicopters throughout the Vietnam War assumed the call sign DUSTOFF followed be a numerical designation, the exception being the air ambulances of the 1st Calvary Division, and no one ever attempted to change this during the remainder of the conflict. Though other call signs regularly changed, both ground and aviation units refused to refer to these evacuation helicopters by any other call sign. By adopting DUSTOFF in those early stages of the Vietnam War, the legend was born.”