ARNG


Shouldn't someone moving to a new neighborhood notice that it happens to be next door to an airport? You know, the place where airplanes and helicopters take off and land.

We have a couple of tempests that brew up around our little municipal airport, every now and then:

1. Someone moves into the neighborhood and, the first weekend after they’ve unpacked, they step outdoors and discover that airplanes and helicopters actually fly into and out of the airport. Duh!

2. Someone moves into the County -- often, say, a half-hour from the airport -- and they’re one of the types who has trouble cutting the umbilical cord back to their cash cow in L.A. or Chicago or N.Y.C.. They get this great idea. Why don’t we have the Feds subsidize a start-up to get sub-hub service into Santa Fe from one of the mainline air carriers?

Airport officials adore these proposals. They usually can squeeze some overdue electronica from someone in the course of the debate. Even though it’s been tried several times and failed, every time. There just ain’t enough traffic to produce the buck$ for a profitable service.

It’s still only a Municipal Airport. Like a former mayor once said, “We have a perfectly good International Airport. We keep it in Albuquerque.” That’s about an hour away. Not exactly a drive that’s gonna wear you out.

3. Lately -- well, starting a few years back -- we have the Sectarian Left gambit into whine #1. That is -- the Air National Guard unit, stationed at the airport is going to be converted into a juggernaut of death and destruction, chartered to murder peasants and protesters throughout the Third World.

If that seemed likely, I might consider getting involved. But, it ain’t, at least, not yet -- and I ain’t. If it did, I would.

The ARNG chopper unit, here in Santa Fe, is a medivac and rescue outfit. It’s true, the poor buggers have been sent off to some of the garden spots of military conflict. In recent years, that’s included Kosovo and Afghanistan. Most folks in the Santa Fe area, Left or Right, wished them well -- regardless of what we think of the political schmucks making the decisions that affect all of our lives.

This pecadillo has started making the rounds, one more time. Personally, I think an outfit calling itself Environmental-anything can find more apt and cogent issues than what might happen to our little ARNG neighbors. It feels good when I’m getting a little stupid, say, out in the Caja del Rio on my mountain bike to know that a call for help from my GPS-equipped cell phone could get my butt airlifted out of trouble. Every year, something like that happens around here. During fire season -- like, now -- when some imbecile with half a testicle for a brain leaves a smoldering campfire to spread into a disaster, I get to watch Forest Service choppers and water bombers coming and going to fight the fire. The ARNG folks have helped out in whatever capacity requested by state and local officialdom whenever requested. Which is what we all expect of them.

I happen to live right next to the airport, by the way. I knew it was here when I married my honey and moved out from town.

I haven’t been up at their hangar, I guess, in about five years. I was there with a crew from the contractor I worked for at the time, sorting out a repair we had been hired to make to part of the structure. Talking to the folks on duty, it became pretty clear what kind of changes they were going through -- trying to maintain Blackhawk helicopters in a facility designed and built for Hueys, 40 or 50 years ago. Today’s military choppers are like 3 or 4 times bigger than the old critters. It was self-evident they were going to have to expand a good deal -- just to stand still.

OK. I’ve been pretty good about digressing, so far. But, right about now, it’s time for an important point to make about Campbell [your blogger].

There is hardly anything I hate more than the sound of a helicopter! Every emotion tied to every memory of years spent supporting national liberation movements throughout the Third World -- every instinct inside my heart of hearts tells me to pick up a gun and shoot that sonofabitch out of the air. Starting with the French paratroops in Algiers -- on through the hellfire of VietNam and into every stinking Imperial venture in Latin America led by scum like Oliver North -- helicopters have come to symbolize murder and destruction to the world just as did the clamoring swords and shields of Caeser’s legions.

I can step back from the hatred in my gut -- and reflect, more or less objectively, on the men and women whose decision to join up may be a little bit different from the ignorant fools who lined up to go to Nam. Or maybe not. But, today, I can still offer a flower or two to welcome back these brave souls when they manage to return home in one piece. I hate the greedy, misbegotten bastards who send them off to make the world safe for Exxon and BP. I have nothing but contempt for the old fools, as old as me, perhaps, who never learned a damned thing from whichever was their last war.

I have no beef with the members of the 717th Medical Company.

Posted: Tue - June 28, 2005 at 02:02 PM