It is hard to have a bad day sitting on the balcony of a hotel room gazing out at the ocean several hundred yards away. The sun and the salty sea breeze complete the picture. Every so often Dolphins appear swimming and leaping about. I grew up on an island, Long Island, and what I miss most is the access to salt water. The harbors, bays, Long Island Sound and the ocean beaches especially Fire Island at Robert Moses State Park. There was nothing like ending a work day by taking the twenty-minute drive to Robert Moses with a cooler and a picnic dinner, going for a swim, sitting on the beach and watching the sun set. It had a way of just drawing the stress right out of you. And no seven-dollar admission fee in the evening. I even purchased a fishing permit one year so I could stay after sunset. Just me, a fishing pole, a friend and the ocean. I never really fished but I had to appear like I was doing so to avoid being kicked out by the beach police. The park closed at dusk. Needless to say I am an ocean person. Some days I have the fantasy of getting on a ship and just sailing away.
Virginia Beach is beautiful and the oceanfront is spectacular. The main drag is touristy but there are lots of non-touristy things off of it. And there is the ocean which is why I am here. Just to sit on the balcony and listen to it at night. To sleep with the door open and listen to the rhythm of the waves. I have not been here in two years and the beach is noticeably eroded. We all know about the perils of global warming. It changes my experience here. This place feels more temporary than it did two years ago. One can’t but help think what a 3-5 foot or more rise in sea level would mean here environmentally and economically. The cost will be in the billions here considering all the resorts and businesses along the oceanfront. They will likely have to demolish and rebuild on higher ground. We are like children trying to hold back the incoming tide from inundating our sandcastles.
From about 9 a.m. on into the night the F-22’s from the local Air Force Base fly over. They do training runs every hour or so. One to four roar by, and I mean roar, out into the ocean air space. I think they come out of Hampton Virginia or perhaps Langley. There is political jockeying in an attempt to move them from one base to another. It is likely driven by economics. A lot of money comes into the local economy wherever they are based. They are amazing aircraft and I imagine it is exhilarating to fly them. I can see myself in one of them doing training dogfights twisting and turning in the sky, trying to evade or destroy the enemy. Perhaps feeling a sense of dread and helplessness as superior technology is about to lead to my demise as a missile bears down on me. It must be even more awful to the the target of drones.
One night when I was out at dinner they flew over and a person, who had been drinking a bit and was intruding on our space as we sat at our table practically leaning on it, took a deep breath and said, “Ahhh, the sound of security”. I responded with “the sound of stupid” and went on to explain my position. The F-22 was supposed to cost 138 million dollars per plane and ended up costing 334 million per plane. Lockheed-Martin was awarded the contract. At present the F-22 costs $60,000 per hour to fly. Is that the price for security? Essentially I own part of the plane as I pay taxes. If I was that inept at doing my job, in regard to budgeting, I would not have it anymore. What followed was a meaningful discussion between us about the excess in the military, of which he was a part of at one time. He saw the waste, but could not speak of it as a member of the military, at least not officially. If you have not seen our federal military budget we will be spending 717 billion dollars in 2019. A 2.6% increase. The Pentagon has stated that global warming is a major security threat. You can look up the articles but here is just one of them: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-18/in-dire-report-pentagon-warns-bases-imperiled-by-climate-change.
I will end today with a couple of quotes from a former General and Republican President:
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”
“We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security”.
It is time to speak truth to power more loudly demanding both transparency and a commitment to resolving disputes through nonviolent means from our governments. Our survival demands it.