SCIENCE!
Yes, I blew off any 9/11 'toon because I'm sick of
the predilection of this country for self-pity and
thoughts & fucking prayers
and
a complete lack of desire to hang those responsible
for the attacks by their entrails... and one of them
was allowed to stand on stage and act all butt-hurt
about it by allowing it to happen.
-------------
The following may seem apropos of nothing but bear
with me.
When I was a kid I was addicted to model airplanes,
specifically any combat aircraft that flew between
1939 and 1945. I'd steal, uh, borrow Mother's waitressing
tips and hustle down to the hobby shop every week and
slobber all over the selection. Revell, Monogram, Airfix,
Pactra… Hell, I'd even take a Lindberg model
kit if that was all I could afford. My collection eventually
grew to nearly cover all the available space on the
walls and ceiling of the little bedroom that I shared
with two of my brothers.
Back then I read a lot about World War II, my dream
being one day to join the Air Force, and I thought
I knew a lot about the business of flying warplanes
but
I
learned something this week concerning aircraft carriers
that absolutely chilled me.
In case you didn't know, WWII aircraft carriers did
not generally employ catapults to launch their aircraft
skyward. The standard procedure was to have the ships
race into the wind as fast as their diesel turbines
could propel them while on deck pilots locked their
brakes and revved their engines. When the moment finally
came the pilots would release their brakes, accelerate
with all their craft's capacity and heave their machines
into the air. Most of the time they were successful,
but sometimes (and here's the chilling part)…
Sometimes the engines of planes would lose power at
a critical moment. They'd lift momentarily into the
sky and then disappear over the forward bow. When this
happened the pilots inevitably died, either by drowning
or being chewed to pieces by the carrier's huge propellers
as it rode over them. There were no chase vehicles
sailing ahead of the carrier to effect a rescue in
just such an event. No one to pluck them from the sea.
Pilots ditching in this manner didn't occur often but
it was
a danger every pilot knew and understood.
These pilots, these men who faced death on take-off
and on landing and in combat, were real heroes. They
gambled their own lives every time they lifted into
the air. It was their duty and their privilege to protect
this country and they did it without regret until the
war was finally over.
The people who died in the Twin Towers on 9/11 were
not heroes, they were victims. And the soldiers who
spent twenty years in Iraq and Afghanistan plucking
a million eyes in revenge for that day's attack were
not heroes, either. They were tools. And the sooner
all Americans understand that politicians used our
soldiers, young and old, for the benefit of oil companies
then the harder we should fight the next time we're
asked to do our "patriotic duty".
=Lefty=
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