FORT BRAGG - It was 1964 when the word first crackled over military radios in South Vietnam.

"Dustoff."

The call sign of the 57th Medical Company quickly became the nearly universal word for medical evacuation by helicopter. More than that, for men lying in the rice paddies, jungle and mountaintops as their lives leaked away, the word became almost magic.

An inbound dustoff meant the odds had just shifted in their favor.

The 57th went on to save thousands of lives in its 11 years in Vietnam and later in Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan and Iraq, and in the United States after hurricanes, including Fran, Floyd and Katrina. In Vietnam alone, the company's Hueys evacuated more than 100,000 casualties.

Indeed, speedy air evacuation is one reason -- along with better medical techniques, helmets and body armor -- that U.S. casualty rates have plummeted since World War II.

But the 57th itself succumbed Friday, disbanded and spread among other units as part of the Pentagon's plan for reorganizing the military.

With a brief ceremony in front of a small audience of current and retired air ambulance veterans, one of the "great untold stories" of the U.S. military history, as the son of an early commander put it, closed its last chapter.

A dustoff is always dangerous, but the job's reputation for heroism was forged in Vietnam. There, the helicopters might have to ease down through a small hole hastily hacked in the jungle canopy, an opening so small that the rotor blades cut branches on the way down, or drop into a rice paddy under such heavy fire that the

rushed landing was more like a crash, then a bounce back into the air.

The man credited with founding Dustoff, 57th commander, Maj. Charles "Combat" Kelly, also set the tone for medevac missions. He did it with a single phrase July 1, 1964, minutes before he was shot to death.

Told repeatedly to abort his mission, that the incoming fire was too intense, he replied coolly that he would leave only "When I have your wounded."

Afterwards, a superior officer handed a 57th officer the fatal bullet and said the unit should stop flying dangerous missions. The man replied that it would continue to follow Kelly's example.

'We're the originals'

In 1962 the 57th was the first full medevac unit sent to Vietnam, and the first to use the UH-1 "Huey."

When Kelly took command at the beginning of 1964, there weren't many U.S. troops in Vietnam. The unit spent much of its time picking up South Vietnamese wounded.

The company had five helicopters to cover the whole country, and at one point Kelly had to fight to keep a general from taking them for nonmedical missions. It wasn't long before it became clear how right Kelly was: American troops began to arrive in ever-greater numbers, the fighting intensified, and missions became so harrowing that several dustoff choppers might be shot down in a single day.

In the early days, the soldiers may have been deadly serious about their work, but they were also capable of M*A*S*H-style shenanigans.

"The Original Dustoff" became a formal title for the unit one night in 1966 after several of the soldiers got drunk at a going-away party and noticed that soldiers of another unit were all wearing buttons that said "We Try Harder," the slogan of a rental car company where one of the men's wife worked.

"Hell, they might try harder, but we're the originals," a 57th soldier said. Within minutes, they were staggering out to the flight line with yellow paint and brushes to make it official -- in slightly crooked letters.

Friday's ceremony was bittersweet for company veterans. Vietnam guys got to mix with Grenada and Desert Storm vets, and compare stories with the men and women of the unit who are just back from their second tour of duty in Iraq.