Yesterday, I introduced the bipartisan Air America Act with Representative Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY). This bill will ensure the brave Americans who served in the Cold War-era Air America operation receive the federal retirement benefits they have earned.
Between 1950 and 1976, a group of approximately 500 U.S. citizens worked flight operations for what was portrayed as the private company, Air America. According to declassified documents, we now know that Air America was not a private company and, in fact, worked as a top-secret arm of the executive branch in implementing Cold War policies under the management of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Air Americans saved tens of thousands of lives in search and rescue missions for downed U.S. military pilots, evacuations of allied refugees and the final evacuations of Danang and Saigon in 1975.
Since Air America was a covert operation and dissolved in 1976, former employees are not able to submit the proper paperwork to prove they were employees of the federal government, even though they were at the time. Congress has twice passed corrective legislation for other covert CIA-affiliated groups and should do the same for Air Americans. These patriots risked their lives, many of them giving their life, fighting communism in the same way members of the Air Force did.
Before the bill was even intoduced, Representatives Val Demings (D-FL), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Brian Mast (R-FL), Chris Stewart (R-UT), Bradley Byrne (R-AL), Stephen F. Lynch (D-MA), Trent Kelly (R-MS), Gus Bilirakis (R-FL), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), Julia Brownley (D-CA) and Michael Waltz (R-FL) signed on as cosponsors. I hope that with this wide bipartisan support, we can pass this bill before the end of the year, because now is the time to properly recognize Air Americans for their service to our country.
