Jet noise: What's all the noise about?

Sorry, but I don’t understand what all the “noise” is about (pun definitely intended). Our new home is very near the flight zone — it’s right under it on days/nights when the nuggets first arrive. But, I’m about half deaf from my tour in Desert Storm, so it doesn’t really bother me that much. I enjoy the NAS Whidbey sound because it’s “home” and I am keenly aware of the price necessary to maintain America’s hard won freedom.

We moved into our new home ten days before I deployed. I’m involved in Operation Noble Eagle right now and I truly miss the EA-6B sound. It’s much more pleasant than the buses, emergency vehicles, un-muffled mo-peds and crotch-rockets that constantly fly past my barracks room here at Pearl Harbor. Particularly so when I’m working the mid-watch and trying to sleep between three and nine.

But, in many ways this deployment is better than Desert Storm or (two tours in) Bosnia. After all, this is a pretty nice Island — though it’d be better with a couple of ferries and a bridge, some snow capped peaks and decent Mexican food. Mail service is almost as good as being shipboard, the e-mail system is improved and I have my 50-state cell phone so the family is just a speed dial away. This is much better than what the troops in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Philippines (or most anywhere else) have right now.

I’ll swap anyone on North Whidbey Island for what I have here on this Island Paradise, including Ms. Nicholai, just to be home with my family and the “sound of freedom.”

Lastly and for the record, it was the fifth columnists like Ms. Nicholai who destroyed France’s will to fight the Germans in World War II.

SCPO Norman Banta

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

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