Russian mini-submarine surfaces; crew rescued

We start today with the good news of the crew of the trapped Russian mini-submarine being rescued. This story brings a couple things to mind.
1. What an amazing change in US-Russo relations. When I first joined the Navy in the 1970's, we spent our time at sea looking for Warsaw Pact ships and submarines and reporting their location. Often Warsaw Pact vessels and NATO ships would have tense standoffs. Even in more recent years, when the Russians lost the submarine Kursk in August 2000 the Russians actually rejected the U.S. offer of help. In today's rescue, the 7 sailors were saved by a joint effort coordinated between British, US, Russian and Japanese teams.
2. We can't pay submarine sailors enough. On boring mid-watches, sailors will talk about any subject to pass the time and every so often someone would complain about how much sub sailors get as compared to surface sailors. My response was always two fold, first if you think their pay is so great go volunteer for sub duty. We only pay as much as is necessary to convince someone to do something. Secondly, after all the training we do geared towards keeping the ship afloat, you couldn't pay me enough to go on a ship designed to sink. Even in peace time they don't all come back up (remember the USS THRESHER (SSN 593) or the USS SCORPION (SSN 589)?)