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an aviator could only count on twelve months between successive tours in Southeast Asia. Every pilot in the grade or major and below was being assigned to a cockpit position. This made some units extremely "top heavy" in rank and consequently morale suffered. Aviators in a sense felt they were being treated as second class citizens and had serious reservations about their career potential. They alone seemed to be singled out for this repeated duty in Vietnam and it was very hard to explain to their families why this was so.
On 14 June 1966, Department of the Army summed up the seriousness of the pilot shortage. Their projection showed that by the end of Fiscal Year 1966 the Army would have a requirement for approximately 14,300 aviators versus a projected strength of 9,700. The requirements were forecast to grow in fiscal year 1967 from a projection of 16,800 to approximately 21,500. Against this requirement it appeared there would only be a strength of 12,800 aviators. Obviously the real constraint to airmobility growth for some time to come would be the critical shortage of aviators.
It was not until 29 March 1966 that the Army received Secretary of Defense approval to increase its flight training from 120 pilots a month to an active Army output of 410 aviators per month. No matter how fast this training program was accelerated, this training rate could not be reached until April 1967. Nevertheless, the Aviation School did reach a rate of 200 per month in May 1966.
Drastic action had been taken throughout the world to reduce manning levels for all overseas commands except Southeast Asia to an absolute minimum. Aviator strength decreased in Europe to a minimum of 250 and only 34 pilots were available to our forces in Korea. Department of the Army mailed individual letters to almost 2,000 aviators in the Reserves asking for volunteers for active duty, but this effort failed to produce substantial results as only sixty applications were received. The Army wisely decided not to drastically reduce its standards nor dip into the "seed corn" of aviation instructors at the schools. Vietnam would have to live with this shortage and use every internal management tool to make the best use of the assets they had.
When I made my second visit to Vietnam in 1966, I was anxious to glean any information which I could take back to the Army Aviation School to better prepare the students for their service in Vietnam. Fort Rucker at the time was almost exclusively geared and oriented to meet the growing needs in Vietnam and the School made a special effort to debrief all Vietnam returnees in an effort to glean every bit of information that would improve its