Editor,

So many of the world’s seemingly intractable problems could be solved by greater willingness to walk in another person’s shoes.

Consider comments made about Outlying Field Coupeville during Congressman Rick Larsen’s March 31 town hall meeting.

As a committed tree-hugger and retired Navy pilot who used to practice landings there, I hear valid points from both sides.

I also hear a maddening unwillingness to acknowledge opponents’ views.

To my friends in Oak Harbor who support the base, how about a little empathy for our neighboring Americans who have a valid point in saying the noise is harmful to them?

“I Support the OLF” signs are easy to install when your house is miles away. It’s OK to support the base, but, to be fair, we ought to acknowledge that noise really does lower quality of life while stressing people and animals.

It actually is possible to simultaneously support our military and ask that it cut noise.

Decades ago, teachers in my school would pause their lessons for 30 long seconds while deafening DC-10s took off from the nearby airport. Since then, commercial aviation has spent billions quieting their engines due to worldwide community insistence, and also, of course, because more fuel-efficient engines are generally quieter.

That tactical jet noise has not similarly declined is legitimately surprising.

To my friends in the anti-noise crowd, I feel your pain, but the Navy deserves credit where it’s due. I was astonished to hear Mr. Larsen say that the base directed pilots to keep landing gear up while flying over Lopez Island to reduce noise. This is a risky change for safety-minded aviators who need their gear-down timing to become an ingrained element of muscle memory.

Also, the Navy’s decision to spend scarce funds building a quieter engine test facility and researching fighter engine “hush-kit” modifications represents genuine prioritization of community noise concerns.

Still, military jets are optimized for victory; hush-kits that reduce engine thrust are too much to ask.

While the noise may have increased in the past decade, it’s still arguably less than it was in the 1980s when the more numerous Intruders and Prowlers filled the skies. The anti-noise crowd ought to acknowledge that an OLF shutdown would threaten the entire base, pulling the rug out from beneath many folks who worked hard to retire here.

Base supporters can genuinely wish for our neighbors’ health and happiness, while simultaneously feeling bewildered that folks who ought to have known they were buying noise-zone property are now pushing for the OLFs departure.

In the near term, this looks like an intractable problem; the base and the noise are likely to stay, albeit modified by various significant but marginal adjustments. With the right mix of imagination and money, this problem might be solvable in some other way.

First, however, both sides would have to sincerely acknowledge each other’s situation. This holds true for many world problems. Solutions emerge spontaneously where people are willing to walk in each other’s shoes.

Bob Hallahan

Oak Harbor