Believe me when I tell you that when the BA fly there is no danger to civil aviation.
The risk to civilians on the ground is also minimized due to the aerobatic box which is established far from and parralell to the crowd line. You also have very professional aviators who take their responsibilities very, very seriously.

That all being said, my confusion comes from your stand on the military. In one thread you are for/unconcerned about it, and in the other very much against it.

You are a very complex fellow and I would just like to know where you want to stand. It would help in our future exchanges.

My stand on the military? It sometimes is needed, but I am far more hesitent than the american political position on how easy to use it. I am more detemrined to use it than the general european and german position. fighting a war and killing people and destroy cities and countries sometimes cannot be evaded. You can feel relief when it is over, and maybe express that. But I full-heartly subscribe to the TaoTeKing concerning this question (translated into English from my own German reworking of it):


30
He who guides in harmony with the One Essence
Is able to guide the world without force.
Violance directs against him: counter-violance,
And huge armies are followed by even greater devastations.
Just doing it, is enough!
The sage simply does it, and does not brag.
He does not boast of his deeds.
Not proud he is of it,
and he does it without force (effort),
Determination only where it is needed,
since a huge strength will not last.
Power and determination are not the way of the One.
what is not of the One's way, does not last.

31
Even best weapons are signs of death,
The sage, contemptously, avoids them.
He turns away from them.
Joy fills his life in peace,
Sorrow fills his life in war.
Weapons are not the way of the One,
Only when being forced will a wise man use them,
If it does not work in any other way.
Nothing he knows of the enjoyment to fight,
To love victory means to love murder.
Who loves murder, is outside the joy to live.
After victory, pleasure is the army's share,
but the commander's share shall be grief,
And he shall commit the victory like a funeral service.
To kill means to create grief.
Whose acting creates death,
For him every victory shall be like a funeral.


Further:

You know nothing of what you speak. These military recruiters are offering opportunities for after these kids graduate high school. The military is not the only ones that look for prospective people to work for them after they graduate. Do you know that there are tons of people who have been given opportunities/job skills/training/college money/etc. from joining the military?

In fact, I'm one of them. I enlisted in the Air Force, got excellent training turning a wrench on jets, got to travel a little bit, made a network of friends/professionals, and got money for college. After college, I was ahead of the game in applying for a commission and getting a flying billet for the USAF. My military experience has been very beneficial to my life as a whole.

Why do these lefty elitists seek to deny this type of experience and opportunity to young people in need of these types opportunities? The military has given some kids with no other way or goals a chance to succeed. These lefty jerks in SFO are only limiting choices and opportunities for kids due to their own political biases.

I happen to be on my tour for recruiting right now in the Army. Those who say keep the military recruiters out of schools better keep the college recruiters out too, just to make it equal opportunity. The best part is the ones who want the military out of schools were usually at one time disqualified from service and are bitter about it, half the time their kids are too.

Yes. You describe it exactly as I have learned about it how it is. And I find the method disgusting to the max. "opportunities/job skills/training/college money/etc. from joining the military?", you say. The final last step would be that they are get "opportunities/job skills/training/college money/etc." from joining the party.

I also know that schools are obligated to give the army the adresses of their students so that they can be contacted, that various show events are designed for exactly attracting young kids attention and interest in these "cool toys" and weapons, that recuriters are trained in letting it all appear in glamour, adventure and shining, while hiding the dark backside of the medal. It is longterm manipualtion, pure and simple, that phase by phase aims at the according age of the targetted prey. The military is no other usual job like any other in business and economy, and that America considers this practicing as acceptable will always remain to be one of the sharpest differences between you, and us.

I repeatedly heared so revealing comments on the immorality of this system from veteran'S organizations, wether it be an essay on the web, or a docu on TV. You should better listen more closely to them. They have seen both sides of the coin, and many payed the price for it. That Americans often honour their veterans apparently only as long as they do not speak out against war, tells a hypocritical story to me. If they do, they are being turned into the dirt of the earth, labelled as commies, loosers, traitors, lefties, and God knows what. Shame!

Book tip.
Steven Kuhn: Soldat im Golfkrieg. Vom Kämpfer zum Zweifler. A book that no american publisher dared to print, so it was released in Germany, finally. Kuhn was a tanker and member of the 1987 team that (until the Cup competition was ended in the 90s) has been the only American team ever that has won the Canadian Army Trophy. During the Gulf War 1991 that he experienced from the perspective at Basra, he learned that nevertheless he had choosen a totally wrong path, his life steered into troubled waters, until he settled own in Germany, married an understanding women, and came to rest again. He lives in Berlin today, saying that "America has made him a man, but Germany made him a human." He works as a manger for a fitness company. another quote by him: "Es ist die Ignoranz vieler Soldaten, nur das zu glauben, was sie motiviert. Wer Zweifel zulässt, kann kein guter Soldat sein."
http://www.3ad.com/history/cold.war/cat.index.htm

http://www.amazon.de/Soldat-Golfkrie...7139373&sr=8-1
A reader: "Obwohl Kuhn sehr selbstkritisch reflektiert, ist er doch ganz und gar Amerikaner. Und das macht seinen Zwiespalt aus, den man als Leser gut nachvollziehen kann. Es wäre wünschenswert, daß das Buch in seiner Heimat zur Pflichtlektüre bei jenen Jugendlichen avancieren würde, die damit liebäugeln in die Army oder eine andere US-Militäreinheit zu gehen."

Hey don't be dissin' Rhode Island. We have our own aircraft carrier, submarine and our national guard has an air wing and we host the US Navy War College.

Rhode Islands military history is quite extensive as well. The Seabees were created here, Rhode Island patriots burned a british ship to the waterline a full 4 years before the Baystaters got into it at Lexington, we've developed torpedos and submarines and PT boats, the last nazi sub to be sunk in ww2 was in our waters.

We've been home to the international military parachute competition ever since I can remember and yeah our national guard hosts a kick ass air show every year that remains wildly popular.

So don't be putting us in the same category as SF, Boulder or any other bastion of weak kneed, appeaser, surrender monkeys. :cool:

Well, I'm telling you from personal experience how it helped me start a career. And other benefits I got from it. And how I saw others benefitting the same way. I thank God that those recruiters helped me at the beginning with my choice. The military profession is an honorable one. And those that choose it as a profession are a special breed of person. Not everyone is suited to it's rigors however. From what I garner, you have no military service history yourself. Am I right? Therefore, you may not have an ability to understand.

100% agree. I started same way, right out of high school while I was still 17. It was best choice and I would do it all over again. Now I have a degree thanks to uncle Sam and since I liked it so much, I'm trying to return into USAF as an officer. In fact, I'm typing from a hotel room a night before taking AFOQT and physical.
FYI; if person under 18, guardians have to approve of military service.

Here's another it helped!:up: :up:

Good luck on the AFOQT. And you do have a leg up applying for a commission due to you being prior enlisted. Trust me, the powers that be who chooses officer candidates likes that. At least that's what they told me when I was going through the grinder. ;)

Exactly. It's a darn shame that the mean spirited scrooges in San Francisco don't at least see the value in that for opportunities. I myself don't believe they tried to stop Blue Angel shows because of anything "dangerous". The fact that they wanted to get rid of recruiters from offering students a choice to see these opportunities kind of prove to me that their motives are less than honorable. If they could only see how many people military service has helped. Or maybe they do, but their crazy misguided worldview gets in the way.

Point is, guys, I am totally critical of earning starting helps, business chances and such - by willing to join the military first. That is no antimilitarism by me. I simply find it to be an extremely bad idea to give the military such a massive influence on civil society, and to give it the baits needed to lure young people with their minds still undergoing their adolescence to go to the army. It is not a job like any other. Becasue if you think it to the end, your profession is to kill and destroy, if ordered. Everything else (keeping the peace, guarding the free world, deter attackers), is ways and attempts only to squirm around that statement. In the face of the high numbers of wars and operations the Us has been engaged in since WWII, it also is not convicning to abstract it to the levelö of idealism how nice the world and the job in the military is - as long as there is no war.

Don't try to distort me. On many occasions I have said myself that I would like to see another and stronger understanding for the need of a better funded military her ein europe. I just totally disagree on the status the military enjoys in civil society in the US, and I disagree on the easiness with which the decision in favour for wars are made in the US. I insist on seeing the military as what iot is: a tool of destruction and killing. That's why I am so hesitent to use, not to mention: to glorify it.

Quote:

Don't try to distort me. On many occasions I have said myself that I would like to see another and stronger understanding for the need of a better funded military her ein europe. I just totally disagree on the status the military enjoys in civil society in the US, and I disagree on the easiness with which the decision in favour for wars are made in the US. I insist on seeing the military as what iot is: a tool of destruction and killing. That's why I am so hesitent to use, not to mention: to glorify it.

The bulk of any countries military are filled with young people. Thats a fact of life and it will never change. It is easier to recruit in school's before they become busy with a 'civilian' life. Getting an enlistment bonus and money for college are perks thats meant to entice people into the military thats also a fact. A majority of recruits come from small town USA that really has nothing to offer and they have no way out to another life. The military offers a way out and a new beginning. For that you give three years of your life to your country. People join for a multitude of reasons and the young of today are not under any illusions of what is expected of them. They also have a choice of which branch they want to go into and also mostly a choice of jobs according to their testing.
For the life of me I can't understand where you get 'joining the party' from. You sound like it's joining Darth Vader. Our military is over a million strong. It's a fact that not everyone is able to cut it, or adjust to it for one reason or another but you gave a promise and you have to carry through. If things are that bad go seek mental health care and they will work with you and your commander.

Quote:

just totally disagree on the status the military enjoys in civil society in the US

I'm not sure what you mean here. You mean civilians honoring those who serve?
Which war have we had a choice in besides Vietnam(debatable for that time) and Iraq? The military is a tool for destruction and killing but offering perks isn't glorifying. Both sides benefit. Both sides have their eyes open.
I'm also another that joined at 17. :) And I have never regretted it. I was never under any illusions and never met anyone who was.

You've never been to California. Georgia or Texas, you'd have a point.

Also, the reason the "decision" was made so easily is because a whole lot of rich, influential people were significantly inconvinenced. Someone runs a couple planes into Sony Square in Berlin, and you'd see a similar effect. I'm not that familiar with Germany, so just figure out where all the millionares and politicans cavort, and then figure out what would happen after a few planes rolled in there during happy-hour.

Your "political elite" would react the same way, because suddenly no amount of armoured cars and bodyguards would prevent their asses from getting washed.

No, I think you overestimate (or understimate us). As a matter of fact we do not speak of Bundeswehr soldiers, but "citizens in uniform" (talking of "army" and "soldiers" is too much for our sensible and wellmeaning hearts and minds). The public is mentally non-prepared to send our developement aid chorps (which is armed for self.protection only) into offensive comabt operation. The parties aren't prepared for that, too. And finally we would not be able to show up with the global logistic capacitiy to support a combat mission of thzat scale on the other side of the plant.

It is strange. Remember one year back, autumn 2006. Canada and Britain and the US heavily complained about the German's role in Afghanistan, ignoring that the German reconstruction efforts caused far greater successes and progress than any other strategy in Afghanistan that focussed on fighting some declared enemy alone. The public attacks was rude and unscrupulous, and intentionally distorted some solid facts. It was demanded that - I quote word by word - Germans "need to learn how to kill again". - Now, here is a german - me! :) - saying that Germany's understanding of what "soldier" and "army" means really is naive, that Germans need to learn indeed that "army" means battle, and that "soldier" means warrior. Here I am and refuse to join my fellow citizens in their naive nice-talking of the army to be a chorps of civil assistants only, or to be an armed assistance force to the "Technisches Hilfswerk" or "Doctors without Frontiers". Instead I say that we need to focus more on the military meaning of what an army is about - and that is fighting battles, kill and destroy - and that I do see the tragic need to do so at certain imaginable occasions, but see no need to glorify it, I already said.

But I do not cheer and applaude, and refuse a system that persuades kids into positive attitudes towards the killing business that the army is - and so I am critizised again: for saying that a soldier's job is to fight wars and to kill and destroy, and that there may be necessity in doing so, but no glory.

From my perpsective your opinions are self-contradictory, and down-playing. I had seen only some, not too much, places of war and fighting and destruction and dying and human sufferign because of war - but maybe I did not see enough to become so dulled that I do not care about it and label it as honourable and glorious. It is not.

Or as I once had said in my sig: "Strong and noble is the one whose eyes can bear everything, but whose heart still feels everything." I strongly believe that this is true, even if it is only a line from an adventure movie (spoken by the unique Philippe Noiret in "La fille d'Artagnan").

(On the situation in Afghanistan I had set up a separate essay back then and so must not comment on that again. Thinking about it I see no reason to correct anything in it - the months since then I see as ecvidence that my estimations on the future were correct. I am just referrting to the international conspiracy that aimed at trying to lurk the Germans into active combat missions and distract them from their own reconstruction strategy that is in sharp contrast to the anglosaxon attempt - as if not already 80% of the German budget is invested into the Afghanistan force and only 20% into reconstruction - how could one expect to succeed in Afghanistan with relations like that? Militarily alone it cannot be won.)

Very soon.:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Mass