Eric Smith was commissioned through the Coast Guard Officer Candidate School at Yorktown, Virginia, in 1997.
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Eric Smith was commissioned through the Coast Guard Officer Candidate School at Yorktown, Virginia, in 1997.
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The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Flying Cross to Lieutenant Commander Eric A. Smith, United States Coast Guard, for extraordinary achievement while participating in aerial flight as the Co-Pilot of MH-60J Jayhawk helicopter CG-6006 on the night of 3 December 2007. Launching from Air Station Astoria, Oregon, during a winter storm of unprecedented ferocity, Lieutenant Commander Smith battled torrential rain, severe turbulence, poor visibility and hurricane force winds en route to a series of inland rescue missions marked by dangerous terrain, hypothermic victims, and poor communications. Exhibiting exceptional courage and aviation skill during the eight hour long mission, he navigated ninety miles through low ceilings, numerous ground obstacles and steeply rising terrain to reach Chehalis, Washington, where hundreds of people were endangered by cold, rapidly rising flood waters. Lieutenant Commander Smith exhibited exceptional professional expertise, conducting fifteen hoists to rescue twenty people from rooftops and through the upper windows of darkened homes engulfed in fast-moving water. Many rescues were completed from high hover due to energized power lines, trees and other obstacles in close proximity. In one such rescue, despite darkness and three-hundred foot ceilings, the crew of 6006 located a woman who had climbed atop her car in attempt to escape the rising waters. In order to reach her, Lieutenant Commander Smith navigated between one-hundred foot tall trees while maintaining enough altitude to keep the helicopter’s tail rotor clear of the energized power lines that precluded conducting the hoist at a lower, safer height. He managed to maintain station, using only the tops of the violently swaying trees as a reference point, long enough to allow the rescue swimmer to safely reach the woman resulting in her life being saved. Lieutenant Commander Smith’s actions, aeronautical skill and heroism were instrumental in the rescue of 39 people. His courage, judgment, and devotion to duty in the face of hazardous flying conditions are most heartily commended and are in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Coast Guard.