Air Force rejects benefits for 'Air America' employees

If you were once a pilot for a secret airline run by the CIA, flying all sorts of clandestine military operations in Southeast Asia for three decades, are you entitled to government retirement benefits?

The Defense Department doesn't think so. The Air Force has rejected a petition by former Air America employees to have their time in the unfriendly skies declared "active duty," which would earn them veteran's benefits. The CIA has acknowledged that it owned Air America and its predecessor Civil Air Transport beginning in the late 1950s, and that it used the airline to run support missions in Southeast Asia for two decades.

The famous 1975 photo showing a helicopter snatching evacuees from the roof of a building during the fall of Saigon? It was an Air America chopper. Shortly thereafter, the airline was dissolved and the employees were cut loose. "It was, 'Adios, fellas, have a nice day,' " said Air America alum Jesse Walton.

Two years ago, Allen Cates, who worked for Air America from 1966 through 1974, filed the petition on behalf of some 500 or 600 alumni. An Air Force review board denied the petition in September, concluding that there was not enough evidence that the clandestine airline was supporting military operations to justify declaring the employees "active duty." But, Cates said, additional documentation has since come to light, and the board has invited him to resubmit the petition.

Cates argues that since many of the Air America workers were former military, most of them already qualify for VA benefits, and so a ruling in their favor won't cost the government much money. More important, he says, given the rogue image of Air America -- which Hollywood helped to create with its 1990 movie of the same name -- a Pentagon declaration that it was a military operation "would establish once and for all that there was more to it than just a bunch of drug runners and malcontents and psychopaths."

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and Rep. Shelley Berkley, both Nevada Democrats, are pushing legislation that would give Air America workers civil service benefits, including pensions. "We have a lot of widows that could really use a few extra hundred bucks to get by," Walton said.