>You're right, Jordan. The pilots on the tape are just doing their job,
>with job number one being getting out alive. I agree that my use of the
>term "traditional combat" was wrong; the term means nothing. Plenty of
>fighting in the past was also done in the detached, clinical way shown on
>the tape and had the same -- yes, chilling -- combination of being highly
>personalized and depersonalized. Being a machine gunner on the Western
>Front in WWI is one example that comes to mind -- you could see the people
>you were destroying right in front of you as individuals, yet your job was
>just the boring, factory-like, routine task of sweeping the gun back and
>forth with a regular rhythm.
yes. this is echoed in the accounts given in the excellent doc *hearts and minds* (now on criterion dvd).
however, chris marker's opening sequence in *the grin w/o a cat" relies heavily on a sadistic airforce pilot. he notes very peculiar things about the victims of his concussive bombing.
my dad flew in an early version of awacs (affectionately known as the willy fudd). he was the onboard electrician and radar tech. he never talked much about it, but what he always reminds me about is how he came out of the navy as an ibew certified electrician. and how his plane flew 120 mph in a nosedive. they hid in clouds a lot. in short, it's like being on call all the time at the busiest hospital in the world, and you rarely get to the movies or new restaurants, and you could die at any given moment. but apart from that it sounds cushy.
cheers, jt. r
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