Obie, I don’t honestly think there was any triumphalism in anything I wrote. No “Mission Accomplished” no “Weren’t We Great?” or anything remotely similar.
It’s just a date which means something to some Pprune readers that’s all. How could you read into this simple epistle something to be so angry about? If I inadvertently used unfeeling words or phrases that triggered your response then I apologize.
There is no spin to this note. No anguish or recrimination. No hidden message of reproach to those who have different stories, different values, different allegiances. No need for rolled eyes because it’s not your world. If there are lessons to be drawn…..draw them. Sherm neither preaches nor judges. I am, as always on this day, adding another stone to the little cairn I and many others have been building along the road these last 21 years saying to the traveler who takes time to rest and think “Many good pilots passed this way”. Many…… indeed too many, have not passed the other way yet to come home. And they will not. Remember them.
Your correspondent, an aging Sherm, recalls and marks with some ceremony or another, many dates and anniveraries. I certainly remember the ’84 and ’85 Grand Finals and wish, in recalling them, that Essendon had a decent centre half forward now. I recall the day I got my DC-9 command and am embarrassed by how little I knew but am thankful for how well I was trained. I am a keen student of airline accidents, remember the dates and lots of detail of all of them and try to ensure that key lessons are embedded within the Sherm memory banks and passed onto those who Sherm has been privileged to teach.
In every chance I ever had, I looked after any pilots would were “left behind”. I know many, many who have done the same. And I’ve been a proud union member these 40 years. As with many many of the 1300.
If there are shadows from that past that haunt you and bring you unquenchable grief and the need to lash out…….then do something positive so that next year, when a few graying pilots simply remember, you can keep the Obie blood pressure within limits.