Sacrificing in Tampa

Awakening near Tampa, Fla., I had to pinch myself to see if I had already gone to heaven this morning. Ann and I are bunking in a "Temporary Lodging Facility" on MacDill AFB. My tanker pilot buddy from 1967 and I have been invited to participate in a tanker commander's seminar to talk about a mission that we flew in the Vietnam War. It seems that once enough time has passed one becomes a part of history or as they call it here "The Heritage." One of my first loves is being around people who fly airplanes and a close second is associating with current Air Force personnel -- this place has both! Plus that the weather is warm and it actually rained this morning. Yep I'm in heaven and I didn't even have to die to get here!

We had a proud grandparent moment last week. Visiting our daughter Moira in Tulsa we rode with her to a high end music store to purchase some sheet music requested by Kelsie's piano teacher. The store happened to be the area Steinway & Sons dealer and had a brace of grand pianos on display. Being the bashful grand's that we are we asked the clerk if possibly our 12 year-old (going on 16) granddaughter, Kelsie Jo, could play one of the wonderful instruments on display. Play she did, Beethoven's "Für Elise." I don't know whether it was the piano's $63,000 price tag (I had no clue that a piano could cost that much!) or grandpa pride but her music was wonderful! In short order the Steinway rep appeared, possibly sniffing a sale.

After Kelsie had played on two more new instruments Mr. Steinway rep then led us to a back room that was set up as a concert studio. On the stage was a Steinway Concert Grand, one of eight formerly used by the legendary Van Cliburn. And yes, Miss Kelsie played several pieces, by memory, on the 91/2 foot bed priceless (cost new $115,000) instrument. Made a tin-ear grandpa mighty proud!

I have a retired B-52 pilot friend who now flies as captain for one of the major air carriers. (Aviation talk for big airline!) John told me shortly after the terrorist attack against the Twin Towers on 9-11 that his compatriots suspected the terrorists had been "jump seating" in the airliners that they hijacked. Not long before several pilots had reported uniforms stolen from their hotel rooms during crew rest layovers. It was surmised that the jump seat hitchhikers simply took their box cutters and slit the carotid arteries of the strapped-in pilots sitting at their crew stations.

At that time, some 70 percent of the airline pilots were former military pilots. In my own experience whenever we carried passengers on a military aircraft we, the crew, were issued firearms. The weapon of choice was a snub nosed .38 Special revolver. Not a terribly effective piece, but more than adequate in the close confines of an aircraft cockpit. To my recollection there never has been a U.S. military aircraft hijacked nor has there ever been an adverse incident of firearm safety perpetuated by a trained military aircrewman and all are regularly trained on firing ranges.

After 9-11 a number of airline pilots decided that it would be wise to quietly carry weapons when they flew to possibly stave off another terrorist attack. It was all done properly under a Federal program called Federal Flight Deck Officers with some 12,000 personnel licensed "to carry" according to a March 17 editorial in The Washington Times. Again, no improper safety incidents with the people licensed to carry. In fact the nearest thing to an incident of any description was accusations of improper use of IDs. The vast majority of those were proven to be trumped- up charges.

Now the Obama Administration has decided that having properly licensed and trained personnel carrying weapons for their own safety and that of their passengers is somehow improper! In a subtle move, the Obama administration this past week diverted some $2 million from the pilot training program to hire more supervisory staff, who will engage in field inspections of pilots. The idea, of course, is to harass those pilots licensed to carry to the point that guns will no longer quietly make their way into the cockpit. Nothing like removing all doubt from a future potential hijacker/terrorist's mind that his intended pilot victim may be armed. And all to soothe a liberal anti-gun ideology. Glad that I didn't vote for him!

Actually I have that whole system beat at the moment. We flew our own aircraft to Tampa and didn't have to put up with TSA's airline security machinations. I think it is the only way to go but then I may be slightly prejudiced.

That is the way I see it.