Jim, I found some numbers that Gary Roush dug up. Very interesting.

About 12,000 helicopters flew in Vietnam, roughly 7,000 of them Hueys. About 5,000 of the total were destroyed in various inventive ways, and more than 3,300 of those were Hueys. (About half of the Hueys sent to Vietnam.)

Over 2,200 helicopter pilots and more than 2,700 crewmembers were killed in action. Based upon numbers he got from a Pentagon database, Gary estimates that over 40,000 pilots served in Vietnam. I have to assume that crew numbers would be roughly equal to the pilot count.

So of the approximately 2-1/2 million American troops who served in Vietnam, less than 100,000 were helicopter aviators and crew. Small percentage of those walking the streets of American today.

Bob