A personal reflection on the emotions stirred by the PBS series on the USS Nimitz
The last three days have seen Posts on the USS Nimitz. On the 2nd there was the first part of air carrier operations specifically looking at the challenges of a pitching deck. On the 3rd came the second part as the pilots and crew operated into night, still with the deck of the USS Nimitz pitching significantly. Yesterday, the Post carried links to background information including the excellent web site that PBS have on the USS Nimitz series.
So why raise the question of integrity?
Like most people interested in flying either as pilots or keen observers, watching highly skilled pilots is both exciting and fascinating. The recent Post on Mach Loop in North Wales in Britain produced the highest daily viewing records of this Blog so far! So it’s not just me!
But watching these guys (and gals) managing air operations on the USS Nimitz had me spell-bound. Was I glorifying something that is fundamentally a ‘machine’ that is there to kill people? Was I using the Posts simply as a cheap way of generating Blog viewers which had nothing at all to do with integrity?
Well, of course, this is really for readers of this Post to conclude. But here’s my position.
Politics should be a mix of ideology and pragmatism. One of the common complaints heard so often now is that politics is neither. It has become some sort of career choice that is severely disconnected from the needs of the common man. Anyway, let’s not digress too far on that one!
On September 2nd 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt used a phrase during a speech at the Minnesota State Fair that seems to address spot on the issue of maintaining a strong defence force to protect a Nation. That phrase was:
“Speak softly and carry a big stick”
Here’s how WikiPedia puts it: The idea of negotiating peacefully, simultaneously threatening with the “big stick”, or the military, ties in heavily with the idea of Realpolitik, which implies an amoral pursuit of political power …
War is not pretty, it often is conducted for dubious reasons and frequently, if not always, creates unforeseen outcomes. But democracy is a threat to others who would want to control and subdue their citizens. Only a big stick guarantees the freedoms of those of us who live in a democratic Nation. We pray that the quiet voices of reasonable men will always solve the issues of this world but Roosevelt was right: Carry a big stick.
It’s an ethical and integrous position.
By Paul Handover disclosing the fact that between 1983 and 1986 I served in Her Majesty’s Royal Naval Reserve as a Radio Operator.
Learning from Dogs 