Sent: Wed, 4/22/1998
From: donald.engen@nasm.si.edu
To: mark.dye@ncca.navy.mil
Subj: Flight Deck Hazardous Duty Incentive Pay
Mark,
Thank you very much for your thoughtful E mail via SI.edu. You have broken the code and you are the first to get a response from my E mail address, simply by making an old sailor feel good. I think you picked up on my deep interest in this in my book?
My copy editor deleted a great deal from the finished book, but here is an encapsulated version. I have spent many years on the flight deck simply flying to and from and in those years formed a deep respect for the great job that men, and now women, did/do. Aviation Boatswains Mates walk on water in my book, and all others, officer and enlisted, are right up there with them.
Finally, as CAG-11 deployed to WESTPAC I sat down and wrote the CNO an impassioned letter and sent it via every aviation command between me and him, knowing that if we could build a ground swell we could make it happen. I wrote that letter in 1962. From that job I went to OPS in Coral Sea and then on to command Mount Katmai(AE-16), and heard nothing. I frequently thought about the letter, but had faith that someone was out there trying to handle the too-hard-to-handle challenge that the letter must be generating. Finally in 1965, just before I deployed to WESTPAC, I received a telephone call from Pete Aurand then the Presidents aide, and Pete said, "Don, I just wanted to know that your letter written as CAG-11 has born fruit. Today, Congress has approved hazardous duty pay for flight deck crewmen." I was more proud about that fact than anything else that I had done in the Navy.
So, I just wanted to say Mark, that you made my day. Thanks for taking the time to sort it out and to write. You really know how to make an old naval aviator proud. Keep the faith and keep helping those fine men and women getting recognition.
Don Engen
