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[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 91 (Tuesday, June 6, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1159]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

  FAIR WINDS AND FOLLOWING SEAS FOR VICE ADM. DONALD F. HAGEN, MC, USN

                                 ______

                          HON. OWEN B. PICKETT

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, June 6, 1995
  Mr. PICKETT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and honor a truly 
outstanding naval officer and physician, Vice Adm. Donald F. Hagen, for 
his devoted and distinguished service as the Surgeon General of the 
Navy. It is a privilege for me to recognize his many outstanding 
achievements and commend him for the superb service he has provided to 
the Department of the Navy and to our great Nation as a whole.
  During his 30 year Navy career, Vice Admiral Hagen has served our 
Nation in a variety of roles, ranging from combat surgeon to the chief 
executive of a unique, worldwide health care system dedicated to 
providing health care and related medical services to Navy and Marine 
Corps members, retirees, and their families.
  Upon commissioning as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy Medical Corps in 
1964, Vice Admiral Hagen assumed his first assignment as a battalion 
surgeon with the Marines in Chu Lai, Republic of Vietnam. He returned 
to Vietnam twice more, serving aboard the hospital ship U.S.S. Repose 
and then as staff surgeon with the Riverine Assault Forces in the 
Mekong Delta.
  Vice Admiral Hagen's experiences as a primary care physician under 
combat conditions led him to seek a career in surgery. His surgical 
training took him to Naval Hospital, St. Albans, NY, and Naval 
Hospital, Portsmouth, VA. He then served as staff surgeon at Naval 
Aerospace and Regional Medical Center, Pensacola, FL; Naval Hospital 
Yokosuska, Japan; and Naval Regional Medical Center, Jacksonville, FL. 
During these years, Vice Admiral Hagen gained not only clinical 
expertise, but became proficient in all aspects of hospital medical 
staff leadership.
  Due to his extensive combat experience aboard hospital ships and 
service with the Marine Corps, Vice Admiral Hagen was selected to head 
the Contingency Planning Division at the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery 
where he served from 1981-1984. Returning his energies to peacetime 
clinical medicine in 1984, he assumed command of Naval Hospital, Camp 
Pendleton, CA. During this tour, Vice Admiral Hagen's broadly based 
record of excellence was recognized by his selection to flag rank. As a 
rear admiral, Dr. Hagen returned to Washington, DC, as Director, Health 
Care Operations, Navy Medical Command and Chief of the Medical Corps. 
In December 1988, he assumed command of the National Naval Medical 
Center, Bethesda, MD. On June 28, 1991, Dr. Hagen took command of all 
aspects of Navy Medicine with the rank of vice admiral as the 31st 
Surgeon General of the Navy.
  Vice Adm. Donald F. Hagen will complete his tour as the Surgeon 
General of the Navy in July 1995, concluding more than 30 years of 
Federal service. Vice Admiral Hagen has provided the broad vision, 
innovation, and dedicated leadership which have resulted in the Navy's 
current high state of medical excellence. A man of Vice Admiral Hagen's 
talent and integrity is rare indeed and while his honorable service 
will be genuinely missed, it gives me great pleasure to call upon my 
colleagues from both sides of the aisle to wish him and his family 
every success as well as fair winds and following seas.

                          ____________________
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