John’s Blog

This is a prime example of why I started ‘Blogging’.

A near-miss of two airplanes last week has started a frenzy of fear.
A pilot acknowledged his ATC transmission to ‘hold short’ but didn’t.
So, Mary Peters, the US Transportation Secretary, at 10:45am January 14th 2008 during an interview on FOX news, said that the plans are to update the air traffic control system and charge different rates for different categories of aircraft use at airports.
The cost will have to be passed on to the air traveler.
She also wants ground-based RADAR replaced with satellite-based RADAR.

Just what does that have to do with a pilot not following instructions?

This is an example of the kindergarten mentality that pervades our knee-jerk solution to world problems.
If one kid cuts his finger with scissors while cutting paper in a second grade project class, the school bans all scissors on school property forever and any child stupid enough to bring a pair of scissors to school in his or her backpack is charged with a felony.

The near-miss had nothing to do with ATC or RADAR or anything else except one person breaking a law.

Should we, using the same logic, ban highway intersections because one person ran a stop light and almost hit a bus?

Once you cross the ‘line’- no matter which line, it becomes easier and easier to repeat that crossing- particularly if there are no consequences.

This applies to borders, to the decisions regarding honesty, to taking that pad and pencil from work or to behavior.

Lines are something like fences, but being invisible they are a lot easier to cross.

Lines are there for a reason, so you should respect the lines established by society or that you have established in your own mind.

The harder and the longer the climb, the higher the mountain and the better the view when you get to the top.It’s not easy to get ahead. Remember how difficult it was to memorize the ‘times table’? But you did it and you survived.

When I was in high school I did just enough to get by. I don’t seem to remember any marking period that I didn’t have a private meeting with Miss Ebbert, our principal.

She would look at me and sigh, “John, the only way to coast is down.”

It took two years of hard work after high school before I began to realize that there had to be a better way.

Then the Korean War came along and I became very patriotic and enlisted in the Navy before I got drafted into the Army or Marines. That was a smart move because I received my Draft Notice when I was in Navy boot camp. I really didn’t feel like carrying an M1 and sleeping in a frozen ditch in the Korean mountains.

There was a catch to my survival though. The only option open for me to get into the Navy quickly was that I had to commit to attend school.

The military has an incentive policy that can be summarized by, “you’ll learn, or else.”

I learned and shortly after graduating Electronics School I went out into the fleet to serve on a destroyer, USS TAYLOR DDE 468, in Asia.

Fate stepped in again and all the senior people above me had been reservists who had been reactivated to get the Navy back into fighting shape. I became the senior person, the Leading ET, by default.

It was then that I wrote on a piece of paper that I have kept in front of me since:

“There is no privilege that exists without a corresponding responsibility”.

So if you want a good view, you have to climb a mountain. There is no other way.

I had not planned to get into this subject at the present time but events sometimes arise that push us in directions not of our choosing.

Today, there was a news article on the Internet from The Christian Science Monitor. It was an article written by Mackubin Thomas Owens who is Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I.

In it he writes, “This week, New Jersey became the first Northern state to apologize for slavery. The resolution expresses “profound regret … for the wrongs inflicted by slavery and its aftereffects in the United States….”

The reason I am writing this is that last week I met an extraordinary man, Dr. Jefferson Wiggins. Dr Wiggins started out life as the son of share-croppers in Alabama and his first recollection of his past was when the Klan came to his house to lynch his father. They came because his father had sold a bale of cotton that the family had picked and he was told not to sell until prices rose.

The family had not eaten for four days and this was their only means of survival.

They were no longer officially slaves. Slavery had long before been abolished but they were not free by any means.

Dr. Wiggins rose from that frightening beginning to enlisting in the US Army during WWII when he was well below age.

His story is of the long struggle that racism inflicts on people and his efforts to become not just a “boy” in Alabama but to a commissioned officer in the US Army.

It is truly an amazing story and is the subject of his book that I highly recommend to every American. “Another Generation Almost Forgotten.”

Dr Wiggins is Chairman of the Wiggins Institute for Social Integrity in New Fairfield, Connecticut.

During the Korean War a friend of mine was an enlisted man stationed at a remote US Air Force base.
It was the middle of winter and life was very boring. Soviet bombers were not destroying US cities.

As George sat staring at an empty RADAR screen he noticed a fly on the window on the other side of the room. Any movement, on the RADAR screen or on the window was cause for immediate response.

On closer observation he counted a total of 5 flies, 4 having missed the original detection because they were stationary.

George, out of boredom, wrote a formal memo entitled, “The Daily Fly Count in the Status Room” and circulated it throughout the base as any other official US Government Document.
After about a week that too became boring so he discontinued the report.

Several days later he received a Letter of Reprimand from one of the base officers as to why he had not received the Daily Fly Report as expected.

What made me think of Georges’ story from so long ago was when I woke up this morning I wondered who reads my blogs and why. What would happen if I suddenly became bored and stopped writing? Would anyone care? Would I get nasty notes?

I’m not willing to risk that so keep checking to see what “pearl of wisdom” will drop out of the shells.

Thanks for reading.