In 2004, a guy I’d served with at TOPGUN dropped an LGB that killed four Canadian soldiers. I never posted on that subject.
In 2010, a guy I went to school with is in a whole lot of hot water in the national press. I don’t plan to post on that either.
Sometimes, the passions of the moment cause us to demonize people who don’t perfectly comport to our own preferences. We tend to lose sight of the real person inside, the melange of of genetic, environmental and experiental complexity that defies simple reduction.
We do it anyway, about people we don’t know personally.
Something to think about.
What someone does as an elected representative in the “heat” of politics is one thing to me. What someone does in the heat and confusion of war in incidents like friendly fire (vice incidents like My Lai) is a whole ‘nother ballgame. I find it very hard to see anything but tragedy and sorrow in the latter. I find it more possible, but not necessarily so, to find culpability in the former. But that’s just me.
Capt,
With all due respect, there have been a few too many heated moments.
“During his Navy career, Eric Massa allegedly touched at least two men inappropriately and may have exhibited a pattern of putting himself in situations where he would see men naked – particularly younger and lower-ranked men.”
http://lonsberry.com/writings.cfm?story=2823&go=4
I’m afraid that now I can never read this blog without thinking of Lex in a ticklefight.
SNORK! ROFL
The tickle fight is just to relax you for the flight physical.
Captain,
The best of your writing has always sought to bring out the complexity and humanity of your subjects, even those we might feel disposed to dislike. Perhaps it is our loss that you haven’t written about these men.
Well, in light of the post just above, and the one several posts below, I must ask if anybody you went to school with turned out to be a child molester. Snork.
Lex, FWIW, if you didn’t read what Steyn wrote on the 2004 mishap, it’s worth looking up just for reference. In his heated view, no matter what mistakes the airmen might have made, multiple failures on Canada’s part made such an event all but inevitable, and he felt the shame was on Canada, not on the US airmen.
Following on Zane, I feel compelled to write about this incident for no other reason than these two guys were ANG from my home State of Illinois–although unlike lex I didn’t know either of them.
Without delving into the minutiae of the rights & wrongs of the incident which have anoted been dealt with extensively elsewhere, let me just say that EVERY SINGLE “short-round” incident I was aware of personally in Vietnam, or read the report about, or read about in memoirs, had, as Steyn notes, multiple failure points that ALMOST EVERY TIME included serious wx, bad or fading light (or night), TIC, confused/poor comm, taking gnd-fire and a sense of urgency to either a) help the guys on the gnd who were being overrun, etc., and/or b) measures taken in self-defense as the pilot deemed necessary. EVERY case that I was ever aware of (admittedly far from all world-wide over 40 yrs) was treated initially prima facia as an accident, NOT a crime. True, poor judgment may have been determined to be a contributing factor–but poor judgment wasn’t held to be a crime.
Here, of course, the question of disobeying direct orders vs “on-the-scene” determinations of mortal threat came into play. Having said that, it is enough to say that the MOST IMPORTANT ASPECT of this incident was the fact that this was the first (to my knowledge) public political “show trial” initiated for purely political reasons (as opposed to inter-service rivalry and chain-of-command intra-service politics in the case of Billy Mitchell) in the history of the US. The whole world knew the Bush Administration was desperate to calm the anger of the Canadians to keep them in the fight. The mere fact that America PAID to have the relatives of the Canadian KIA flown to 2nd AF HQ (or had it been changed to 9th by then?) Barksdale AFB in Shreveport to sit, like Madame Lefarge, in a military courtroom knitting their needles and nodding approvingly as the trial was underway was enough to make the proverbial Jakal wretch. Those guys were not only thrown under the bus of political expediency–they were threatened with real jail-time and a criminal record–all for having the gall to volunteer to serve their country. I lost A LOT of respect for Rumsfeld and Bush and the entire command structure of the USAF from that day on.
But of course, as we were to learn from the attempt to Courts-marshall that ex-enlisted, sniper, ex-stock-broker Marine Lt (whose name now escapes me) in 2004/5 for killing two captives in the field who attacked him, on to the Haditha Marines the dismissal of LtC Allen West for “harsh” interrogation techniques (firing a gun beside the ear of a captive) the Haditha Marines and up to the present-day Navy Seals, in the trial of the two Illinois ANG pilots, we were just beginning to see the results of the infiltration of the JAG by PC attorneys and their baleful influence on the conduct of war–and of the extent to which elected politicians and their key appointees are so cowed by PC that they will bend over backwards to insure that no one can lay the charge of PC insensitivity at their feet.
The Tanak Farm incident was just the first glimpse, the first peek, first taste, at how spineless our entire command structure has become, so thoroughly infected, drenched in PC (” ‘Diversity’ is our No.1 priority”) as it obviously is.
It’s early in the am and the disgust of just writing this, addressing the subject, has driven me back to the Barbancourt–and I’d just sobered up, too….
TICKLE ME, MASSA LEX!
“Sometimes, the passions of the moment cause us to demonize people…we don’t know personally” sounds an awful lot like He who gives an answer before he hears, It is folly and shame to him. Proverbs 18:13
Which would shut down about 90% of the internet commentariat, n’est pas?
Department of I’m Not Making This Up:
Rush Limbaugh has just now been making dick jokes and colonoscopy groaners on the subject of Mista Massa. Katy Couric was quoted, mentioning that somebody had an unusually long colon, and that she was in the splash zone.
Oh, AFSis? Yer doing it wrong, flirting hetero like that. We’re annoying sailors with homo jokes here.
About a year and a half ago I was at a local coffee shop outside Rochester, NY, when in walked Eric Massa. At the time he’d been running for congress, I had noticed signs all over the place, but I was pretty new to the area so I really didn’t have a good hold on the local politics.
He had a personality that demanded attention, and that’s about the only good thing I’ll say. He was pretty rude and demanding of the coffee shop barista’s, and acted like a puffed up turkey. Not impressed. Neither were the rest of the folks in the place.
As he left one of the barista’s commented on that being an election deciding moment, and that’s when I found out who he was.
Sorry to hear that he’s under fire from the media, etc. But honestly I’m not surprised given the political talent that NY seems to breed so often.
Regards
On a whim I’m listening to the program recorded, on FoxNews.com, between Glen Beck and Massa.
I just don’t get this guy, Massa, he’s crazy. Also, I’ve honestly never seen the Glen Beck show, but he’s uncomfortably pedantic and opinionated. This being said I suppose that’s why he gets paid.
Just my thinks on the matter.
Yes, but JTG, I haven’t given Lex a hard time in a while, so he’s due a little ribbing.
ya can pick your nose, but ya can’t pick yer classmates….
sometimes ya get caught out on either offense.
You might have qualms about commenting, Lex — but others don’t:
And God knows, we’ve just GOT to respect the opinions of true scholars on this matter, Scott..
Uh, this just in from the NY daily news-
“In 1990, aboard the USS Jouett, I was awakened when a senior officer, Lt. Commander Massa, seemed to be groping me. (I was a lieutenant at the time.),” Borsch wrote.
“I believe he may have been drinking. I shouted at him and he left. I mentioned the incident to several other officers. I did not officially report it.”
Clarke and another sailor told The Atlantic there were others, including Tom Maxfield, who allegedly found Massa in his bunk undressing him.
“He wakes up to Massa undoing his pants trying to snorkel him,” Clarke said, adding no one complained for fear of retaliation.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2010/03/11/2010-03-11_disgraced_exrep_eric_massas_long_trail_of_bizarre_behavior_includes_home_shared_.html?page=1#ixzz0hu6JEeTG
I’ll put my oar in these highly charged waters by saying the above example, if true, (and we have no reason to believe it isn’t) EXACTLY proves my point about not having homosexuals serving openly in the service, which I made in one of my very first posts on this site. NO serving officer (or enlisted) should have to quietly bear the shame of being “snorkled” in one’s sleep by a fellow officer for fear of retaliation and/or a CO saying in a “he said-he said” situation: “A pox on both your houses” and separating BOTH individuals for “conduct unbecoming.” NO ONE should have to face that dilemma. Ever.
“snorkel.” Heh. Or, Snork! Dang, this is going to be the urquell for lots of really bad jokes.