The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Flying Cross to Lieutenant Gregory A. Houghton, United States Coast Guard, for extraordinary achievement while participating in aerial flight as aircraft commander aboard Coast Guard HH-65B helicopters from 30 August to 3 September 2005, during Hurricane KATRINA rescue operations. Demonstrating superior aeronautical skill, Lieutenant Houghton flew over 23 hours on search and rescue missions in a hazardous urban disaster environment. While searching the ravaged areas of Waveland, Mississippi, Lieutenant Houghton skillfully maneuvered the aircraft to deliver the rescue swimmer between a set of power lines along an elevated railroad track adjacent to a flooded neighborhood. After searching and finding five survivors among the debris, he adeptly positioned the aircraft to retrieve the desperate survivors. On 31 August, launching single-pilot, Lieutenant Houghton carefully balanced flight duties against mission planning in order to employ the aircraft and crew for maximum impact. Once on-scene, he deployed his rescue swimmer horizontally to a second story balcony causing the loss of visual contact when the rescue swimmer entered the building. Quickly improvising, Lieutenant Houghton radioed another Coast Guard aircraft that was hovering adjacent to his own and used the pilots in that aircraft to call out swimmer and positioning information to allow him to safely complete the rescue. With no other hoisting options available, he repeated this demanding, unorthodox blind hoist maneuver 28 times. On 2 September, hovering at an altitude in excess of 80 feet and placing nose of the aircraft three feet from the top of a utility pole, Lieutenant Houghton carefully hoisted a mother and her infant directly from the contaminated flood waters. While navigating in unfamiliar and unpredictable conditions, Lieutenant Houghton, through superb aeronautical skills, avoided a near entanglement in power lines and a mid-air collision, keeping himself and crew safe to continue the important mission. Lieutenant Houghton’s actions and aeronautical skill were instrumental in saving 96 lives. His courage, judgment, and devotion to duty are most heartily commended and are in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Coast Guard.