The Blue Angels

Dear Mr. President,

The Blue Angels are back in town for the annual Fleet Week air show, roaring around the sky in close order drill, a sight to behold, stirring the hearts of young boys and old men alike. When I was a young man I dreamed of being a jet jockey, of flying fighters off the decks of aircraft carriers. I dreamed of glory and the thrill of flying, of rocketing across the sky temporarily freed from the pull of earth, as close to immortality as a man can get. But I couldn’t pass the physical—no depth perception—so the illusion of glory and heroism and the swagger of a demigod disappeared in an instant and I settled for something less as most men do. The Angels are as thrilling today as ever, their F-18s sleek and fast, their maneuvers precise, in close heart-stopping formation, and as I watch them out my window, I suddenly wonder if they are the last of a dying breed, whether Predator drones will someday replace the Blue Angels in air shows. (Predator drones in tight formation?) Like most young men, when I dreamed of flying jets, I never went beyond the glamorous mask of the Blue Angels, never thought about what these young men in their flying machines were trained to do: kill the other. Like most 18-year olds, I didn’t look beyond the illusion of glory and patriotism to the consequences and horrors of war, to the victims, the innocents, the collateral damage, and ultimately to the ones who suffer the most, the children. Nor did I question the causes of war, the politicians who dream of empire or the profiteers’ raw greed or the insanity of war itself. In a curious way, your weapon of choice—drones—strips the mask off war and reveals its’ ugliness. From first sight, I have thought Predator drones, Reaper drones, Global Hawk drones, unbelievably ugly. They are neither sleek nor graceful, there is nothing about them that pleases the eye. They are the skeletons of death; blind and lumbering, they deal Hellfire from on high without conscience or consciousness, controlled by human drones comfortable and safe thousands of miles away. There is no glory for a drone “pilot” and there is no glory in war. You have ushered in a new era, Mr. President, with your lawless drone wars which should be so repugnant that war will finally be rejected by every nation, tribe and individual on earth. But alas, it may be the beginning of a new, more terrifying and savage way of war. Maybe we are not on the verge of enlightenment but rather, on the verge of a new Dark Age.