The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Flying Cross to Lieutenant Commander Mark S. Guillory, United States Coast Guard, for extraordinary achievement while participating in aerial flight on 10 March 1995 while serving as Aircraft Commander of Coast Guard HH-60J helicopter CGNR 6021. The aircrew was engaged in the search and rescue of three victims of a Cessna which had crashed into a mountain after encountering blinding snow. Lieutenant Commander Guillory skillfully navigated 150 miles through icing and near blizzard conditions to reach the approximate search location. With seven civilian aircraft searching the area, Lieutenant Commander Guillory immediately assumed On Scene Commander duties directing all rescue efforts. He plotted positions as the copilot wove his way through the mountainous terrain pinpointing the intensifying electronic locating transmitter signal emitting from within a box canyon. Cognizant that no escape route existed once committed in the obscured clouds, Lieutenant Commander Guillory took the controls and began the dangerous ascent. Fighting off the affects of vertigo in near white out conditions, he leap-frogged treetop to treetop for 20 intense minutes. Approaching the 2,000-foot elevation, the aircrew sighted the crashed Cessna precariously positioned on an avalanche slope. The copilot took the controls and hoisted three aircrewmen to the waist deep snow to extricate the pinned victims; one frantically waving victim was hoisted expeditiously into the helicopter. With visual on-scene relief made, Lieutenant Commander Guillory took the controls and descended by leap-frogging treetop to treetop for 20 minutes until visual reference with the beach was reestablished. Lieutenant Commander Guillory’s actions, aeronautical skill, and valor were instrumental in the rescue of three survivors. His courage, judgment, and devotion to duty are most heartily commended and are keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Coast Guard.