Thoughts on the Flight of the Blue Angels

My immense sadness and grief over what we are witnessing in our nation continues, and I want to share some thoughts.
First, I am thankful for all those who serve in our military with love and diligence to protect us here in this nation.
Today I have noticed some talking about today’s flight of the Blue Angels which according to one source was “designed as a tribute to COVID-19 frontline responders” and was planned over the mid-Atlantic region from New York and down through New Jersey and into Delaware.

I respect that many find this event inspiring them of certain feelings of reverence and excitement that leads them to speak out in various forms and I understand the intent. According to the same source, “In a statement, the U.S. Air Force said their goodwill mission has a practical reason, due to having to cancel several air shows due to social distancing protocols.”

I cannot begin to understand the meaning this event brings to the inner worlds of others, I simply want to share another perspective.

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Before beginning my writing, I did two Google searches to help me better express what is on my mind:
1) “Why do the blue angels fly” and 2)”How do the blue angels make people feel”
From search number 1: “Mission. The mission of the United States Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron is “to showcase the pride and professionalism of the United States Navy and Marine Corps by inspiring a culture of excellence and service to country through flight demonstrations and community outreach.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Angels

From search number 2: “The Blue Angels pilots are immensely skillful, flying in airtight formations that put their jets within inches of each other (sometimes causing accidents and near-collisions). The Blue Angels are a great show — but at what cost, and to what end?
For all the “cool factor” of soaring jets, the Blue Angels create widespread fear, too. For one example, Michelle Celeste Malliett, a para-educator in San Francisco, told me: “I work in special education and when the blue angles fly over head practicing ,the class goes wild, in a bad way. They all cry. They get terrified.”
Others, including veterans and refugees from war zones have repeatedly reported being traumatized by the Blue Angels screaming and roaring overhead.”
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/10/14/problem-blue-angels
I find this second comment interesting in that it emphasizes the fact that this type of display arouses the primal sense of fear. I think when things appeal to our primal senses we should think about why that is and when we do things that affect the primal senses of others we should think about why we do that. As human beings we have the capacity to evaluate ourselves, our world and what drives us.

Sometimes, we may need or desire to move beyond primal instincts and primal drives – many of which have to do with fear, violence and the need for self-protection from the unknown or the incomprehensible.

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Strangely as an adult I have had this type of primal experience in another context. I use it to illustrate how we may not be aware how other people experience something we consider it to be a good or positive thing, based on their own experiences with that thing.

As a child that grew up with various trauma in our home and certain false beliefs about myself being bad or somehow the cause of it (a common experience of trauma survivors of all types and ages), I found the sudden announcement and appearance of Santa riding a fire engine through our neighborhood actually quite frightening on some primal level. And due to my mother’s illness and paranoia over innocuous happenings in the neighborhood and world beyond, I could expect the impending visit from Santa to be filled with strangeness.

The Santa Engine would stop throughout the neighborhood wherever kids came out…and I have a memory of it stopping in front of our house one time and vague memories of what would have been the typical response inside our home. Things such as locking doors and shooshing me to keep quiet while she peered out her blinds at children who were going out – possible taking notes on which kids she saw – and possibly my crying or begging to go out as well but being forbidden.

I was an only child and in my mother’s ill world, many things were falsely perceived as a threat.

But as a child, I lived in a world where my mother wouldn’t allow me outside to experience this event like other children; therefore I had a sense of missing out on something very big and important. I also came to believe that this Santa magically knew how very inexplicablybad (naughty) of a child I was so even at times when I was permitted to encounter Santa as a child, I felt a disorientating sense of fear and dread.

Added to that was Christmas morning when my friends discovered many delightful new toys and gifts and there was little celebration in our home in any meaningful way. As a young child, this was quite confusing. On Christmas day, my friends had grandparents visiting and special meals so they couldn’t come out and play until late day – when I would then go in their homes and see all the special toys and observe the magic that had happened overnight, to them.*

Fast forward into my adult years. Forms of PTSD trauma and seemingly innocuous events can momentarily – throughout one’s lifetime – trigger deeply held recollections of fears, beliefs and difficulties in ways we know to be irrational yet we experience in a real way.

As an adult I have found myself in ordinary situations (ex. face painting at holiday events) when Santa makes his grand entrance and the excitement in the air and the sudden loud, booming (jolly!) voice yelling “HO HO HO” triggers a sense of strange personal trauma in me. I find myself on the edge of tears momentarily, trying to identify whatever it is I am experiencing.

Of course I love Santa and he was part of the positive childhood experiences of my own children and celebration of Christmas – but how emotionally disorienting it is to be face painting a child at a Christmas party and finding yourself turning away because I am secretly tearing up with some hard-to-describe nonsensical emotion.

Because in my childhood, that friendly, booming voice was not for me.

It was for them.

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This grand entrance on a fire truck into our neighborhood – by a somewhat other wordly looking man in a red suit with sirens blaring was in some sense, an announcement of good news for them that felt like bad news for me.

It was not about material gifts per se.

It’s always about the thing under the thing, right?

If as a child you believe that Santa doesn’t visit you secretly during the night in the same way he visits others and the possibility is that you are too naughty – that is about relationship. That is about something entirely different.

I don’t think my young self could form questions such as, “why am I not of the same worth and value as my neighbors?”

Like the gospel, if it is good news, then it must be good news for all. Like a wealthy, powerful nation, if it is blessed and powerful, then it must take great care to exude an attitude of wanting to bless and protect all.

Yet those elsewhere may have a different story to tell about what we here call The Blue Angels.

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While many around us view the terrifyingly magnificent sounds, sights and skills of the Blue Angels as that which it primarily is – an aerobatic demonstration squadron which today flew in salute of front-line workers during the COVID-19 crisis – others may be questioning the timing of this display. To some here in our nation, it may have felt like a parade in the sky and they are thinking parades come when a war ends; supplies come during the battle.

Others may possibly view it as a form of damage control – possibly timed and crafted to arouse what it obviously arouses in many US citizens. That is, possibly, along the lines of we are all OK and will always be OK because we live in the best and most powerful nation on earth.
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It has become personally hard for me to have a real-time look at examples of our nation’s fighter jets coupled with less and less clarity of what we are doing in the world with them, without imagining what the sound of these aircrafts might sound like to those in other parts of this world. Many associate the sound of these with the sound of the powerful.

And for many in this world who feel powerlessness or find themselves on the other end of this power – these sorts of sounds trigger another terrifying reality. Those in war-torn nations who have experienced this ongoing way of life may not view the sound and sight of the fighter jets of the most powerful military empire on earth as a sound that brings the things we all want: love, joy, peace, protection. Instead, it is a trigger of trauma.

And as the article I quoted earlier stated, even our own military personnel may experience negative associations with the sound of the Blue Angels. I have come to believe that our exceptional military power should be a source of our own fear and trembling, introspection and circumspection. I believe we need to think also of our fellow human beings created by our Creator – especially in far away lands – for whom the sound of American fighter jets triggers many other memories and associations.

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While the sound and sight of the Blue Angels’ display during this devasting and ill-handled pandemic triggers feelings of security for some and was intended as a salute, for others there are many fears, questions and other emotions surfacing. I think we must be careful not to view this act as a sign of confidence that we are about to return to business a normal. Surreal as this all is and I admit, there are many days I not only isolate myself but isolate myself from further news about the reality of what we are facing.

So in the sense that this was intended to salute those seeing and responding to the most suffering here in the United States during the pandemic – those experiencing what I imagine to be an exceedingly immense exhaustion, fear and heartbreak – I can understand.

And I also now understand through further reading that “It also fulfills critical training requirements for both teams. Pilots must execute a minimum number of flight hours to maintain proficiency. These flyovers will incur no additional cost to taxpayers.”

I guess I just wonder how some perceived this and especially the timing of it. Sadly we live in a climate where most everything relating to power and narrative we must question in relationship to agenda and probable effect.
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I think it can be difficult for those that follow God to find ourselves in the position of reconciling what it means to be part of two kingdoms in a sense – the earthly kingdom and the heavenly kingdom (Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, we are taught to pray).

I ask myself and you:

Is love a primal instinct?
What is it that rouses us to feel God’s love not only for ourselves but equally for others?
What does it mean to feel roused to live out an exceptional love toward all, even when it is quite messy?
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Isaiah 2:4
“He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.”

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For more reading and listening:
New York City ER medical director, 48, takes her own life after telling her family about the trauma of witnessing patients dying from coronavirus before they could be taken from ambulances

Apocalyptic Hope – podcast by Rob BellInspiration and analysis on how things might be different going forward

The Fog of War : Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara is a 2003 American documentary film about the life and times of former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara illustrating his observations of the nature of modern warfare.