Is this the best low flying complaint re-buff ever?

[Tigs2]

I found this while going through some old paperwork. It was written during GW1 but it would still be great to use today.

San Diego News (letters Feb 4th)

Reply to "Is harassment of residents the role of the military?"

Statement from Capt John F Peterson
USMC Pacific Beach

Responding to Maura Harvey's letter wondering if the Marine helicopter training flights that passed above her Del Mar home were simply to harass residents. I can say that, yes, our mission is to harass residents, specifically Mrs Harvey.

We do not train 24 hours a day, seven days a week to provide freedom and security to all residents of the United States. We exist only to annoy the very people we are sworn to protect, against all enemies, foreign and domestic. We spend months and years overseas, away from our families and loved ones, in some cases making less than minimum wage, choosing to live a life in which many qualify for food stamps, just to have the chance, one day, to annoy people like Mrs Harvey.

There is no more sought after position in the military than the Maura Harvey Annoyance Task Force. As a matter of fact, the marines who spent christmas dug into fighting positions in Northern Kuwait and their brothers in the sky, braving anti-aircraft missiles and artillery, were just training to come back to the States and fly missions over Mrs Harvey's house. It has nothing to do with the security of the nation. It has no impact on our ability to carry out missions in Africa, The Middle east and Eastern Europe, and it has no bearing on Mrs Harvey's ability to enjoy "nature and peaceful quiet living". The "strange almost scientific war scene" she described was put on solely to make noise and to destroy her "scenic view corridors" in Del Mar Terrace.

It certainly was not valuable and necessary training to help sustain the lives of those who assure the nation's freedom, should they ever be sent into harms way just to do that. Next time Mrs Harvey may want to look upon those loud machines and think about the men and women who fly, ride in, and maintain them. Ponder the sacrifices they make in providing this nation with the warm blanket of freedom we all enjoy. Maybe she might even imagine how much more disturbing it would be if she were not sure what country the helicopters were from, or whether they were going to attack her beautiful neighborhood. But she shouldn't worry too much about that, because we will not let it happen.

:ok::ok::ok:

[Clockwork Mouse]

Priceless!

[cockanelli]

reminds me of Jack Nicholson's speech in A Few Good Men about "You want me on that wall, you need me on the wall" etc

[exscribbler]

Brilliant! He must be the USMC PR Director by now. :ok::ok::ok:

[scarecrow450]

There's a well known complainer that can be directed to near Shawbury !:ok:

[Ali Barber]

Saw one many years ago from a British MP along the lines of "if I thought your views were held by even a minority of my constituents, I would give up my seat in disgust". Anyone got a link to the original, would love to read it again.

[Hangar_9]

wasnt the Shawbury gangs HQ co-ordinates posted up here for "purpose" harrassment :E

[taxydual]

An old one, I know, but......

http://www.targeta.co.uk/wheretogo.htm

[octavian]

Bl**dy marvellous. Well done Capt Peterson. Our freedoms have not been won easily, but how easily some people take those freedoms, and the sacrifices that have won them, for granted.

[Riskman]

Apologies - thread drift

The cousins allow much more creativity in their responses to to the less reasonable critics.

Link to a radio interview transcript I hope is true.

http://www.inthe00s.com/archive/membersonly/1028079712.shtml

[Two_Squirrels]

The one I liked was heard on Radio 4 a few months ago, when a reporter asked and Army sniper:

"When you shoot your weapon at a person, what do you feel?"

Answer: "A slight recoil"

[Capt Pit Bull]

My old mums still complaining bitterly about low flying.

"Not enough of it", she says.

pb

[JagRigger]

As Orderly dog one night, fielding off complaints on the first evening of night flying, I took one especially concerned call.

I promised her a call at 2200 by the Orderly Officer.

I wish I could have been a fly on the wall in her house when she received her call - from the pilot who had just landed, and whose opening gambit was along the lines of " Yes, it was me "

Actually, he was probably the best guy to deal with it as he explained extremely eloquently the when’s, the whys and the wherefores as only a pilot could.

[tonker]

They should have got this man to ring them.........;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1PxsmPpl5o

[ozbiggles]

I always thought a good way to handle this would be to invite the complainer around to the base in the morning for a cup of tea. When they get there ask them to point out on a big picture of the airbase where their home is. Of course the photo should be taken from when the airbase was first built there. I always wanted to see the reaction when they say "my house wasn't built there then!"
I know what my reaction would have been..... probably one of the many reasons i wasn't promoted to far!

[Torchy]

My mother worked in a bakers shop in North Wales and, because the locals knew that my father had been in the RAF and that I was still serving in the RAF, they would complain relentlessly about low flying jets, C130s etc. Strangely, when GW1 started the locals couldn't heap enough praise on the RAF and said they loved seeing the jets and liked the noise and said that my mum must be very proud! Cue end of hostilities and, within a week, we were back to the complaining etc. Funny old world.......:ugh:

[Epimetheus]

I recall an MP's letter to a complainant after GW1 along the lines of:
- thanks for your letter expressing concern about noise from low flying near your house
- for me personally (the MP) I am delighted that they are back in UK skies making this noise, as it means they are no longer being shot down/at over skies in the ME and risking their lives for the freedom of Kuwait
- and when they are back here making this noise, it enables them to train sufficiently so that when they go overseas again, there is more chance of them returning alive, so that they can continue to make this noise in our skies!

Or words to that effect. Someone must have a copy to hand?

[Wader2]

Apologies - thread drift

The cousins allow much more creativity in their responses to to the less reasonable critics.

Link to a radio interview transcript I hope is true.

http://www.inthe00s.com/archive/membersonly/1028079712.shtml

Husband and wife had a boat on a lake for fishing but the husband had gone off on a call. The wife decided to take the boat and just float onthe lake and read a book.Shortly the warden arrived and asked to see her fishing licence. She explained that she did not have or need a licence as she was not fishing."But you have all the necessary tackle in the boat and you could start fishing as soon as I go away. I will have to arrrest you."She smiled sweetly and said "if you arrest me I shall have to accuse you of sexual assault.""But I haven't touched you""No", she said, "but you have all the necessary tackle and might.""Have a nice day mam, enjoy your book."

[Wader2]

We had a serial complainer. He used to write letters with whole serials of complaints and sent them to the Ministry. Eventually someone worked out that maybe they should tell us.

I went out and found that his house was not where his address suggested it was. I called and explained why his house was indeed overflown so often - we didn't know it was there. It was a little Lincolnshire single story cottage built flat on the ground, flat green roof in a strand of trees.

Also I found that a low level 'avoid' had been removed so crews were no longer diverted over his house. Nerry a complaint since.

'Nother time a complainer suggested that the noise would be avoided if our circuot direction was reversed. OC Ops arrange to visit and at the same time ordered the suggested alteration to the circuit. Afternoon tea was disturbed as the house now got the full benefit of the aircraft engines under full power pointing at it. Another satisfied customer.

And another horsey one this time. "Where exactly are you?" She told me. "Ah, your husband did some welding work for me." No more complaints, her husband was on benefits :}

[Vasco Sodcat]

This thread reminds me that just prior to Granby a local lady complained to Marham, then, upon the outbreak of the air campaign had the decency to compose an apologetic change of heart in the form of a poem. The then CO replied in kind, and both were read at a dining-in. Anyone still got copies??

[oldbeefer]

Here's another one:

Andover Advertiser 9 July 2004-07-08
Letters to the Editor (pg. 17)
We should be grateful rather than grumpy over these helicopters.
YOUR tired and anonymous reader from Cole Close wrote complaining about military helicopters, asking who gave them permission to fly over his house, waking him in the night.
Well, I live near Cole Close, I can tell the gentleman that the helicopters (which woke me too, briefly) fly in the air corridor over open land to the east of Andover, away from housing.
But the ones he complains of so bitterly were Chinooks and their noise travels on calm, windless nights.
The Chinooks were flying to part of a recent army exercise on Salisbury Plain, an exercise for soldiers who recently returned from six months in Iraq and who will no doubt return there (or to Bosnia or to Afghanistan, or Africa, or wherever the UK Government next decides to keep the peace).
UK exercises provide a brief, safe opportunity for the Army and RAF to practice operations or test new equipment and to train new personnel without the threat of enemy fire.
They take place infrequently and are well planned, avoiding as much disruption as possible and keeping noise to a minimum. But inevitably someone’s back yard is encroached, even briefly. Even in Cole Close.
No doubt the next day Mr Grumpy of Cole Close drove safely via Kiel Drive and avoided the non-existent shell holes not obstructing Saxon Way, with no danger of ethnic snipers from ‘that lot’ in Charlton or Enham Alamein trying to pick him off.
His spouse may have followed him, delivering children to school without having to run the gauntlet of bigoted hate-filled neighbours intent on stoning them as they passed. And when he returned home (possibly upset by a hash email from someone in accounts or angry because the stationary cupboard had run out of paper clips) no burning bodies lay in the road.
His house had not been burnt down because guerrillas from Winton objected to his religion or place of birth or skin colour or language or narrow-mindedness.
He could barbecue in the garden, leaving the children to play safely in the adjacent nature reserve, because the Andover Revolutionary Party had not booby-trapped their footsteps or land-mined the roads.
Wake up and smell the peace Mr Nimby! You and I and the other residents of Andover owe a huge thank you to our soldiers and aircrew who do our Government’s bidding under terrible conditions month after month.
And when they do need a few nights per year to exercise in safety then I for one am happy to hear the helicopters pass by. After all, they won’t be firing missiles into my back yard. Will they?
A serving soldier
Name and address supplied

[AR1]

I recall an interview on HTV West in the mid 80's that had a woman complaining about an exercise at Hullavington. On camera, she claimed that the Hercules pilots were so low, you could see them wearing their scarves, smoking a pipe in the cockpit.

Pass me some of those mushrooms love...

[FOG]

Oz,

Use to get that at El Toro on a regular basis, and that was just from take off and landings. The area up through the 70s was essentially orange groves.

The really galling part is that the civilian thought they were entitled to the Sunday brunch due to having to put up with the noise. The responses while mild by USMC standards were not as PC as the Capt.’s.

S/F, FOG

[gazbert]

Another spectacular - though sadder - case of foot in mouth, (http://www.snopes.com/politics/military/wakeup.asp) with a justified response.

[Lydia Dustbin]

nice one Gazbert.

On a serious note, reading that made me realise that for everyday 'citizens', war becomes normalised. The media stop showing the sandpit on the news, they stop telling us about the deaths of yet more servicemen, and for these cocooned people whose daily routine is work and walmarts, they just forget what is actually being done on there behalf. Excellent responses from the two Colonels. I imagine the guy still cringes to this day.

[scudpilot]

what about the story about the Harrier that "locked on" to speed camera, or is that an "Urban Myth?"

[ricardian]

It's another urban myth
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/techno/radar.asp

[Jabba]

Some years ago, after months of letters complaining about aircraft noise, a letter which read something like this was published in a York newspaper:

Sir

Previous correspondents have correctly observed that the RAF has a history of purchasing aero-engines which are very noisy. The Merlin was a very good example. What price silence?

The complaining letters stopped!

[Ali Qadoo]

The standard response we always used to use before it was pulled up short by a, "Your hat, my office," chat with the station commander went something along the lines of: C Flight shag: "Tell me, madam, was the aeroplane you saw silver with red stars and Russian writing on the side?" Mrs Trellis (for it was she): "No, I don't think so." C Flight shag: "Oh, that's alright then, it was probably one of ours" ....click

[iss]

Still remember one phonecall into the COC complaining about jet noise 'waking up the baby'. Ops officer was v sympathetic and following the form until he got the address - someone on the Maried Patch! :ugh:

A distinct un-PC 30seconds followed

Happy memories!

[NorthernSID]

I always thought that the best reply to complaints would have been a compliments slip with the a bumper sticker:

JET NOISE - THE SOUND OF FREEDOM

Undoubtedly too non-PC. Shame really!!

[blandford50]

Wonderful piece- but sadly in 'complainers are always right' UK, an officer wouldn't be allowed to write in those terms.
It reminded me of young married life in a village near Coningsby many years ago. I knew it would be occasionally noisy, but strangely the low-flying aircraft never woke the babies. It was always fun watching the Lightnings making their twitchy approaches to land. One day, when the Phantoms were particularly repetitive in appearing to try removing our chimney, I phoned RAF Coningsby and asked to be put through to the control tower. I told them that it's all very well flying Phantoms round and round in the circuit, but I could hear the Lancaster and a Hurricane (from BBMF) in the distance. To give us a break, I asked could they move things around a bit so the Phantoms were in the distance, and we could be treated to some low-flying Merlin sounds for a change. Polite farewells. Phone replaced on cradle. I expected nothing. After a period of a few minutes of no flying whatsoever, the Lanc and the Hurricane flew over a few times, flooding our senses with that wonderful racket. Coincidence? Maybe. But I'd like to think the controllers had a heart. This tale is absolutely true. I bet you can't get through to the tower like that these days! B50.

[NutLoose]

I seem to remember a well know Australian exchange Chinook pilot serving as duty ops when we had recieved our first Chinook, upon receiving an irate call put through to him from a farmer complaining the new fangled helicopter we had just recieved was scaring his animals replied

"Well they better get use to them as it's going to be here for the next 20 years or so and there are more on the way"

and with that he promptly hung up on him.:}

[taxydual]

About 20 years ago an Army Officer went to buy a house in a small, fairly secluded development in Leeming Village.

He could only view the property at weekends and didn't particularly like the very high Cypress hedge around the back garden. "The first thing to go" he declared in the Willow Tree pub one Saturday "Open up the view".

He subsequently bought the house and moved in, again, over a weekend.

Come the Monday morning, RRRROOOOAAAARRRR ,the first F3 of the day decided to commit aviation, shortly followed by his pal's and rivals.

"What the f***!!!" says the Pongo and decided to look through his hedge to discover RAF LEEMING on t'other side. And I mean on the other side. His newly aquired property was butt up against the airfield boundary and he had no idea when he bought the house!!

The complaints we got from him were many, furious but shortlived.

Someone pointed out that it wasn't the RAF who had hidden the airfield from him, and that his Regiment at Catterick(a Recce outfit in light AFV's) may think twice about giving soldiers to officers who couldn't read a map!!

He moved.