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FROM THE PHONE BOOTH: The Smallest Space in  Hollywood

	FINEFROCK

Welcome Aboard
War Criminal Airlines
by Steve Finefrock - Hollywood Forum [scriptwriter] 7/10/08

Why oh why do airlines scramble eagerly, with cash in their corporate claws, in recruiting fighter pilots to shepherd hundreds of paying citizen passengers thru those friendly skies?  Are they stupid? Is it their starry-eyed adoration for macho men with daring stories of derring do that hath been done in their callow, careless youth?
 
Or, perhaps those corporate champions find that an able analysis renders their choice the rational one. Maybe they see something not appreciated by MoveOn.org ranters and four-star idiot and Army general Wesley Clark.
 
One thing Weird Wes does know, or should know, is that corporate America generally seeks more than just generals from among ex-military leaders. Anyone attaining the army/marine/air-force rank of captain is worth gold to the managers of serious workplaces. An army captain fills the responsible role as a company commander: between 150-250 humans are under that captain’s daily demanding commanding responsibility.

Feeding, housing, sanitation, recreation, combat readiness, vehicular maintenance, hazardous materials management, affirmative action and workplace harassment, plus the war-related job of maintainaing readiness for any eventuality – all for two hundred souls, every day, every week, even when that captain is on weekend leave. No serious officer is ever ‘on vacation’: the page beeper was invented for such folks. Before its electronic emergence, such officers constantly phoned their destination and a contact phone number into HQ, akin to the duty-bound husband in Woody Allen’s “Play It Again, Sam” – but not for comedy, or comity, but commitment to duty.
 
In the Navy, the equivalent to an army captain is a full lieutenant, that grade preceded by a jr. grade lieutenant [lt., j.g.], and prior to that, a green and eager new officer is a lowly navy ensign. Getting to that third officer rank – O-3 in paygrade parlance – is a hallmark of capability of working without daily supervision by your superior officers.
 
Thus, the value of O-3 [and higher rank] to managers in the private sector – and in government workplaces as well.  Especially those who’ve piloted a combat craft as their career coursework. That is the pathway of Lt. Commander [O-4] John McCain when flying combat missions off Yankee Station in the waters of the North China Sea near Vietnam.
 
Thusly, airlines yearn for any retiring navy or air force or marine pilot of any combat qualification – even if never actually in combat [of which many are so tagged], but especially if experienced with the hurly-burly mortal stress of aerial engagement with an ardent enemy committed to homicide. The ‘in between’ category is any navy carrier pilot who’s never gone ‘hot’ with his weapons: merely a ‘qual’ for carrier duty is exceptional, for such a qualification means you’ve cleared so many hurdles that merely finishing a round-trip mission, without any battle engagement, is a mark of decision-making and crisis-management combined with hours of inherent stress. The last few minutes prior to a ‘trap’ – the plane being trapped by the cables on the flight deck – render greater stress to pilots studied in Vietnam with recording medical monitors, than they had earlier experienced in their combat engagement prior to landing!  
 
Add any combat time to a fighter-qualified pilot of any service [including army chopper pilots], and your company has gotten a pearl for a pilot, to handle most any crisis which a mere airline craft might confront.  Numerous civilian aircraft incidents have been readily resolved by a combat-experienced pilot, and quite a few by those with ‘mere’ combat training without ever firing a shot in anger, or being on the receiving end. Compared to a purely ‘civilian’ pilot, the track record of combat-trained flyers at the helm of a commercial plane is superior by considerable margins.
 
They are all valuable – but to hear the MoveOn.org crowd, and Wes the Mess, they’re mostly war criminals. Much like George McGovern.
 
Little known is McGovern’s 1972 autobiography that revealed some of his WW2 experiences as a bomber pilot over Europe. He dropped many ‘anonymous’ bombs, which surveys [during and after the war] confirmed rarely fell within even five miles of the target!  Ya think there was some collateral damage? His altitude was in the ten to twenty thousand feet range, a bit less than Mac and his allies in later war, but nevertheless McGovern qualifies for the MoveOn.org definition of a war criminal.
 
And there’s the little anecdote by McGovern of his bombardier deliberately dropping an unused bomb during their return back to England – on a quiet French farmhouse!  McGovern mentioned it in his book, but just never managed to mention it AT THE TIME – the ‘crime’ went unreported, the bombardier’s playful stunt never subjected to an investigation. Nor did McGovern strive to find if that farmhouse was occupied, and if any deaths occurred from that mindless bombardier stunt.
 
Is anyone accusing McGovern’s WW2 high-altitude, ‘anonymous’ missions that killed unseen civilians many miles below as a war-criminal? Or Jimmy Stewart, who flew even larger, higher-flying B-17s with heavier bomb loads wreaking havoc and hell on German citizens he’d never met?
 
How about all those airline tickets held in the hands of MoveOn.org passengers, riding in a plane perhaps guided by a Vietnam vet who dropped thousand-pounders or napalm on innocent, unknown, unmet civilians below them in those jungle environs? Are they, and Jimmy Stewart, and George McGovern, all to be branded as WAR CRIMINALS?
 
A fun, if totally un-corporate, outpouring would be for all active commercial pilots with such ‘war criminal’ background to greet their passengers during a particular period – such as Labor Day Week – with a calm, Chuck Yeager utterance, “This is your war-criminal pilot speaking. Welcome to war-crime airlines. Enjoy your flight.”
 
Or, have the airlines publish which flights are helmed by such criminals, so MoveOn.org and the DNC and its loyal adherents to this Jane Fonda/William Ayers brigade can cancel their flights in righteous protest. Has Barack vetted his campaign’s pilots to see if any war criminals are ferrying him, his staffers, or the DNC across the fruited plains in evil planes?
 
When you ride your next flight, if you can afford the ticket and checking your luggage, ask the ticketing agent: “Is this plane’s captain an experienced military pilot?”  And ask yourself, would you like a John McCain as your pilot, responsible for hundreds like yourself, trapped inside a flying tube, for several hours – or prefer a Barack Obama to carry that load on his bony shoulders?
 
Mac’s arms may not reach above his head, but I’d trust him – the war criminal – to pilot a plane of hundreds, or a nation of millions, from any cockpit at any time, in preference to Barack’s lack of ‘qual’ for even flying a Piper Cub. Mac’s survived, and made decisions within, more moments of grief and terror-filled stress and anguish in a single month’s service off Yankee Station than Barack has in his lifetime, or will ever experience in his entire life if he lives to be a century old.
 
Which of these men do you trust to fly YOUR plane?  The war criminal, or the war-weasel? The one who’s handled grief and stress and danger all around, or the one whose main ‘qual’ is as a Community Organizer? [There’s a side-by-side TV ad suggestion for the RNC, with audio of a simple rising, raucous roaring laugh.]
 
Next time you board your flight and are about to make that right-face turn for the cabin, first pause to briefly peer leftward into the cockpit and ask yourself: Hmmm, which candidate could best handle this plane in a panic? Are either of these flight officers to be labeled ‘warm criminals?  How many such folks are likely to vote for the Kid, or for the Lt. Commander?
 
Which pay-grade does a community organizer earn? It’s less than an ensign – this clown with the big ears is worse than putting Ensign Pulver in charge of a battle ship, much less the Oval.  Compared to Mac, Barack is an Oval Teen: his favorite candy to be served at the DNC events should be JUNIOR MINTS.
 
Again, the metaphor: Which one would you want in the cockpit of your airline? That answer is also who should be piloting the Oval Office.  
 
Line up at the gate, please, and have your tickets ready; the flight is boarding now. Your plane captain for this flight is an experienced [community organizer] [navy combat pilot]… ExileStreet

copyright 2008 Steve Finefrock

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