ALSO, something I thought of in light of recent events:
Lucas's affidavit mentions specifically the casualties onboard the helicopter being thirteen, not eleven as previously reported. This would have been eleven Marines, one Navy medic (Dennis), and one CH-47 crew chief (noted but unidentified by name in Lucas's affidavit as Lucas could not recall it). This is similar to discrepancies in the reporting on the recent Kabul airport attack. Ironically, exactly eleven Marines were killed there, along with one Navy hospital corpsman and one Army staff sergeant. However, many early reports claimed thirteen Marines were killed in this attack, and "thirteen Marines" is still what's often repeated by word of mouth when people around the country discuss the event. In light of this phenomenon, it's very easy to see how somebody like Mark Dennis's friend could have encountered somebody who was suspicious about the reported dead in the CH-47 crash on 15 July 1966. Indeed, eleven Marines alone were killed in this attack, and "eleven Marines" may have been what stuck in early reports about the matter, with (largely civilian) reporters unaware that not everyone involved in the event was a Marine. After the fact, updated accounts emerge that include non-Marine personnel, and you can see how some may take this as "evidence" of some sort of cover-up when in fact it's simply incomplete early reporting about a fast-paced, horrific event with several moving parts.
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