Military Air Show Should be Grounded

I have never been fond of the pageantry of the Chicago Air and Water Show¹. Apparently, I’m not alone, though for different reasons. Colin McMahon is an Iraq vet, and thinks the display is sickening.

Here we were, toasting our firepower even as young American men and women were dying at sickening rates in a foreign land. Oohing and aahing on the beach while the very types of warplanes we were celebrating were inflicting horror on some good, innocent people—not merely on the bad guys.

It seemed beyond anachronistic. It seemed perverse. And it was freaking me out.

That was a couple of years ago. But even if the roar of the Blue Angels no longer bedevils me, I remain convinced that the militaristic aspects of the Chicago Air & Water Show should be accorded honors and laid to rest. Especially today, with jet fuel costing what it does and all of us trying to consume less energy.

[From Ground military air show — chicagotribune.com]

If you want to see a photo gallery of the display², Frank Hashimoto created a public Flickr group.

Footnotes:

1. or other similar displays in other cities [↩]
2. which is actually quite aesthetically pleasing, in an abstract way. Airplanes are beautiful feats of engineering. [↩]