One of my buds who flew gunships for 2 full tours got over 90 air Medals for his two tours. I read the rules about flight in WW2 and you had to do 25 Missions (not hours) over the enemy to get one medal. and the missions were 5 to 13 hours long. That included trips to Berlin etc. Most bomber crews were dead or were captured in less than 25 missions. Anyway, I got in the mid teens of AMs as a maint officerand combat pilot, BUT only because I went with the platoon and flew a lot of combat to get them,(really, I was just building time trying to get assigned as a test pilot to bell Helicopter) (I got it). Otherwise the things were 100 mintenance flights hours for each medal, so I am not jealous. I just do not equate 25 hours over Dak To with 25 missions over Berlin in WW2. We army pilots and crewmen in Vietnam lost more than 20 Percent in a tour. In Germany they lost close 10 percent PER MISSION and close to 75 percent per tour. So as I said, If you survived and got a medal, be proud. you did your duty to America.
BT