No Media, No Need
I looked at my father sitting across the hanger in one of the folding seats that had been arranged for the visitors. I imagined him back in 1962, when he was a cracker-jack pilot, putting it on the line all over the planet. He is grey now, looking a bit sad due to the occasion. I imagined that he too yearned for those days, ached to be back in Kenya a day before the crash so that he could prevent it from happening somehow, perhaps with the hindsight that he has today.
Finally, after 47 years, the first men to die in the U.S. space program were being honored.
I looked around at the pathetic showing of media, one local Melbourne, Florida newspaper. No television. No radio.
Where were the networks who are so willing to usher our sons and daughters to war for ratings? Where were even the right wing militaristic reporters, like the convict Oliver North. Not enough testosterone release for his likes at this touching service? No dressing up in Marine clothes and eating MREs, so no show.
A plaque was unveiled. Family members of the thirteen airmen killed that cloudy May day in 1962 were wiping back tears, still looking for “closure,” whatever that is.
I was proud of my dad, even knowing that pride is the core of all sin. I couldn't help myself. It could very well have been him. And if it had been him, what would be my thoughts? I cannot say, but I know with my skeptical and curious mind, I would want answers as to how such a crash could have occurred. I would want the rest of the world to know about it. They wouldn't, because the news media in this country have their heads in the wrong place, a place where it must be very dark.
I was incensed that there were not even local television stations present. Angry, but not surprised. As the ceremony continued, I imagined news assignment desk planners going through the items of the day on this Friday.
“What's this?”
“Oh just a bunch of old veterans getting together at the cape.”
We made it to the moon in less than a decade. America is capable of great things. And as with most of them, there is great sacrifice. Americans are on the whole unaware of what the United States Air Force and other services do on every manned space flight. They circle the globe, positioning themselves for a mishap, getting ready to rescue our astronauts should they come down in the wrong area, even if it is a hostile area. In May 1962, 13 brave airmen died when they were heading for a landing in Nairobi. They crashed into a mountain. Very few people know about it. This was a chance for the media to help honor them. They didn't.
As I look at my dad, sitting next to mom, I am glad that they are still here to see the day when a plaque is positioned at the place where the Mercury rockets blasted off. Dad doesn't need the media to tell the story of the horror that day when the plane behind the one he was flying quit responding to radio calls. The memory has been deep inside him, burning, white hot, lo these many years, and will, until his last breath.
posted by Jim Sutherland @ 12:22 AM
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