Ross: Blue Angels, and their noise, a good reminder of America’s war machine

In Saturday’s The Seattle Times, an Air Force Flight surgeon made the case that this year’s performance by the Blue Angels should be the last one in Seattle because of the noise.

He has a point there. While sitting in my backyard yesterday, I used my sound pressure app and clocked the sound at 107.5 decibels. Our neighbors had similar readings. That’s because we’re on Mercer Island, and the planes do those hairpin turns maybe 300 feet above the rooftops. And of course, we hear every show and every rehearsal.

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And yet, as annoying as it can be, I’ve come to see it as a necessary dose of reality. Like it or not, this is part of our war machine. You can’t pretend it’s not there.

I even went down to see the USS Sampson – the destroyer docked at Pier 46. It’s got 96 total missile cells. And that’s just one relatively small warship. We need to remind ourselves this stuff exists, and it’s standing by for the next war. And we’re not the only country with weapons like this.

We need to imagine, at least once in a while, how it would feel to be sitting in a backyard hearing that sound from a weapon that isn’t on your side. Because that’s the reality all this represents. The nations of the world are bristling with powerful weapons that can obliterate cities, all under the control of fallible human beings.

And this is an excellent time to conduct that thought-experiment, with the Blue Angels overhead, because it just so happens we are in the process of voting on who those human beings will be. That’s the purpose of the ballot that’s sitting somewhere in your house right now.

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And whether you came away from Seafair in awe of that display of military power, or terrified by it, or just enraged because your ears are still ringing, all the more reason to pick up that ballot and use it wisely.

Listen to “Seattle’s Morning News” with Dave Ross and Colleen O’Brien weekday mornings from 5-9 a.m. on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.

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