Mid-August in Vermont is as close to heaven as we’re permitted while alive. The July heat wave has passed. Cicadas drone through the sunny days, crickets sing in the cool evenings. Goldenrod blooms by the roadside, warning that this ripeness will not last.
On Wednesday afternoon, I could hear a chorus of children singing “I’ve Been Working On The Railroad” at the top of their lungs in a nearby backyard. It was odd and comforting to hear children singing such an old song. It reinforced the timeless quality of summer, as if all summer days are really one.
The children’s voices were drowned out by a ripping noise in the sky, followed by another and then another. Fighter planes, F-16’s, were practicing at the airport. Burlington has F-16s stationed at our Air National Guard base. Six F-16s of the Air Force’s stunt-flying Thunderbird unit had joined them. The Thunderbirds are bringing their show here this weekend to celebrate the Vermont Air Guard’s 60th anniversary. I didn’t peer out the window to determine if the F-16s were ours or theirs. The sound was the same.
Unintimidated, the children continued to sing, but were only audible at intervals. Screech “… all the live-long day…” Roar. A second tone, a high-pitched whistling sound, accompanies the jets’ roar. I half expected the whistling to end with an explosion, but the explosions never came.
The Vermont Air National Guard is called the Green Mountain Boys, after Ethan Allen’s 18th-century militia. The hangars at the airport bear the nickname and the dates 1776 and 1946. The 1776 date always strikes me as inappropriate. The Green Mountain Boys were formed long before the revolution as partisans in intercolonial land disputes, not unlike those in the Middle East today. Their primary contribution to the revolution was the capture of Ft. Ticonderoga in May 1775. By 1776, Ethan Allen was a British prisoner.
Addled chronology notwithstanding, the F-16s of today’s Green Mountain Boys and their Thunderbird guests rent the sky but did not defeat the children’s singing. “Dinah won’t you blow, Dinah won’t you blow, Dinah won’t you blow your hor-or-orn…”
Lockheed Martin makes F-16 fighter jets and sells them to U.S. citizens for $208 million each. They have a maximum speed of 1,500 miles per hour, twice the speed of sound. The Thunderbirds will burn 7,200 gallons of jet fuel during their one-hour show Saturday.
Eventually, the jets’ noise ceased, but the children had stopped singing, too. The insects continued to drone, the cross-lake ferry sounded its horn as it approached the King Street dock. For all its beauty, August is a tortured month. I’ve read accounts of the balmy weather in August 1914 and August 1939. I can testify to the beauty of August 2001.
On cue, the mailman arrived to deliver the New Yorker, in which Seymour Hersh writes of American-made F-16s in the Israeli air war over Lebanon, comparing their strikes to the 1998 NATO air war over Kosovo and Serbia. Mr. Hersh says Dick Cheney and his aides see the Lebanon sorties as practice by proxy for an American air war against Iran. Tensions between the U.S. and Iran are expected to rise at the end of August, when Iran is to declare if it will comply with a UN deadline to cease its uranium enrichment. Iran is expected to say “no.” Mr. Hersh writes that Mr. Cheney is eager for the Iranian war to begin, before George Bush’s term of office grows too short.
Mid-August in central Florida is a not quite heaven. My dad turned 75 Monday and several family members sneaked into the oppressive heat to surprise him over the weekend.
My aunt lent an old photo to my brother, which he had enlarged and framed. It shows my 20-year-old dad in the autumn of 1951, white cap on his head, the sleeves of his Navy pea coat still innocent of rank. He stands with his duffel bag beside the open door of a 1948 Dodge. The bare branches of trees trace the sky behind him. My dad’s almost smiling in the photo, but not quite. There’s tension in his face; one wonders what thoughts go through a young man’s mind as he poses for a last photo before heading off to join a war.
My nephew is 17. Like his peers, he’s finally arrived at his senior year in high school only to be preoccupied with college. My brother and sister-in-law filled me in on the schools he’s considering. They told me of his proficiency in math. We spoke of various programs of study and whether early acceptance at one school was better than keeping his options open. A true 17-year-old, my nephew passed on the conversation.
Another topic made its way to my lips. My nephew will turn 18 early next year. A rite of passage will be draft registration. I stifled the topic; I didn’t want to introduce that note into a weekend of reunion and celebration.
This morning I opened the local newspaper to read that the Army, desperate to fulfill its recruiting goals, is lowering its standards, accepting more recruits who score poorly on intake tests. The article noted such recruits are a poor match for today’s high-tech Army and defense officials wonder what it will take for the military to improve the intellectual prowess of its soldiers.
August is a Tortured Month
Mid-August in Vermont is as close to heaven as we’re permitted while alive. The July heat wave has passed. Cicadas drone through the sunny days, crickets sing in the cool evenings. Goldenrod blooms by the roadside, warning that this ripeness will not last.
On Wednesday afternoon, I could hear a chorus of children singing “I’ve Been Working On The Railroad” at the top of their lungs in a nearby backyard. It was odd and comforting to hear children singing such an old song. It reinforced the timeless quality of summer, as if all summer days are really one.
The children’s voices were drowned out by a ripping noise in the sky, followed by another and then another. Fighter planes, F-16’s, were practicing at the airport. Burlington has F-16s stationed at our Air National Guard base. Six F-16s of the Air Force’s stunt-flying Thunderbird unit had joined them. The Thunderbirds are bringing their show here this weekend to celebrate the Vermont Air Guard’s 60th anniversary. I didn’t peer out the window to determine if the F-16s were ours or theirs. The sound was the same.
Unintimidated, the children continued to sing, but were only audible at intervals. Screech “… all the live-long day…” Roar. A second tone, a high-pitched whistling sound, accompanies the jets’ roar. I half expected the whistling to end with an explosion, but the explosions never came.
The Vermont Air National Guard is called the Green Mountain Boys, after Ethan Allen’s 18th-century militia. The hangars at the airport bear the nickname and the dates 1776 and 1946. The 1776 date always strikes me as inappropriate. The Green Mountain Boys were formed long before the revolution as partisans in intercolonial land disputes, not unlike those in the Middle East today. Their primary contribution to the revolution was the capture of Ft. Ticonderoga in May 1775. By 1776, Ethan Allen was a British prisoner.
Addled chronology notwithstanding, the F-16s of today’s Green Mountain Boys and their Thunderbird guests rent the sky but did not defeat the children’s singing. “Dinah won’t you blow, Dinah won’t you blow, Dinah won’t you blow your hor-or-orn…”
Lockheed Martin makes F-16 fighter jets and sells them to U.S. citizens for $208 million each. They have a maximum speed of 1,500 miles per hour, twice the speed of sound. The Thunderbirds will burn 7,200 gallons of jet fuel during their one-hour show Saturday.
Eventually, the jets’ noise ceased, but the children had stopped singing, too. The insects continued to drone, the cross-lake ferry sounded its horn as it approached the King Street dock. For all its beauty, August is a tortured month. I’ve read accounts of the balmy weather in August 1914 and August 1939. I can testify to the beauty of August 2001.
On cue, the mailman arrived to deliver the New Yorker, in which Seymour Hersh writes of American-made F-16s in the Israeli air war over Lebanon, comparing their strikes to the 1998 NATO air war over Kosovo and Serbia. Mr. Hersh says Dick Cheney and his aides see the Lebanon sorties as practice by proxy for an American air war against Iran. Tensions between the U.S. and Iran are expected to rise at the end of August, when Iran is to declare if it will comply with a UN deadline to cease its uranium enrichment. Iran is expected to say “no.” Mr. Hersh writes that Mr. Cheney is eager for the Iranian war to begin, before George Bush’s term of office grows too short.
Mid-August in central Florida is a not quite heaven. My dad turned 75 Monday and several family members sneaked into the oppressive heat to surprise him over the weekend.
My aunt lent an old photo to my brother, which he had enlarged and framed. It shows my 20-year-old dad in the autumn of 1951, white cap on his head, the sleeves of his Navy pea coat still innocent of rank. He stands with his duffel bag beside the open door of a 1948 Dodge. The bare branches of trees trace the sky behind him. My dad’s almost smiling in the photo, but not quite. There’s tension in his face; one wonders what thoughts go through a young man’s mind as he poses for a last photo before heading off to join a war.
My nephew is 17. Like his peers, he’s finally arrived at his senior year in high school only to be preoccupied with college. My brother and sister-in-law filled me in on the schools he’s considering. They told me of his proficiency in math. We spoke of various programs of study and whether early acceptance at one school was better than keeping his options open. A true 17-year-old, my nephew passed on the conversation.
Another topic made its way to my lips. My nephew will turn 18 early next year. A rite of passage will be draft registration. I stifled the topic; I didn’t want to introduce that note into a weekend of reunion and celebration.
This morning I opened the local newspaper to read that the Army, desperate to fulfill its recruiting goals, is lowering its standards, accepting more recruits who score poorly on intake tests. The article noted such recruits are a poor match for today’s high-tech Army and defense officials wonder what it will take for the military to improve the intellectual prowess of its soldiers.
I wonder, too.
© Mark Floegel, 2006