My dad served two tours in Vietnam. Among the medals he was awarded, he got 46 Air medals. You got an Air Medal every time you had 20 missions. Now, those missions could be attacking enemy positions, inserting and extracting troops, or:
One day, dad was coming back from a Beer Run to Danang. His Huey was loaded to the gills with rockets, machine guns, and Ice-Cold Coors, his crew was making their way back to Quang Tri when an alert came over the radio- A platoon was pinne...d down and taking fire from NVA forces. Since he was in the area, he volunteered to get them out.
After pickling a few rockets into enemy troop positions, and his door gunners sweeping the area, he got the platoon on board his chopper and began flying them back to their Fire base.
Tired, exhausted, and wounded, the Marines heard dad say over the intercom: "Got some ice-cold beer in the back if you want it". Needless to say, their day immediately got better.
Why my dad didn't get the Medal of Honor for this, I'll never know.
