Tom,
You are right about things picking up in 67. I am convinced each new operations officer was determined to break the record of the last one. Once, after the "Operation Thayer II" in the first part of 67, we had broken the in-country AHC record for combat hours two months in a row. The ships were getting pretty ragged. I overheard the ops officer calling BN. and offering to take some additional missions because he had the aircraft "available".
I went out and grounded two of them so we could do maint on them. When I came in and "red Xed" them on the ops board, him or his assistant (can't remember which) questioned me on it, but I had decided to do the maint since the " missions" were obviously not being laid on us. Got some nasty comments from some of the leaders and it was one of the few times in NAM I did not make my "13 and 5" but I felt we needed to make a point and get back on track. I am pretty sure the CO knew what I had done but other than the first comments for missing "13 and 5" without combat damage no more was said. Anyway, I was proud of our efforts when the cheese was in a bind, but not real happy about working guys asses off just so someone could "look good".
BT