This is not a Hollywood Movie A Different Perspective on the Space Shuttle Colombia Accident essay by Esteban Erik Stipnieks
What is like to the be son or daughter of a military aviator? Three Movies Highlight some of the aspects of the life style. The Movie Call To Glory has a good treatment of the topic. The Movie the Great Santini also showed some aspects. Tom Wolfe and the movie The Right Stuff also has a decent depiction. What is hard to convey is the fact this is not Hollywood. There was no "Fanfare For the Common man" in the background when my father's flight of OH-58s was sited near Beaumont en route from Ft. Rucker back to Austin as drove in my mother's firebird back to New Braunfels. The aerobatics of the Thunderbirds and the Blue Angels draw ooohhhs and aaaaaaahhhss to the family that is mommy, that is daddy. An autograph poster from the the Thunderbirds was talking shop between them and a flight crew that brought a helicopter for static display at the same air show. Coworkers and aviators shared stories the pilots were on the job of something they loved flight military lifestyle. The US Precision Helicopter experience in 1989 for me was interesting one. Reading the after action report I found it interesting to see how the National US Precision Helicopter Championships were attempted to be hyped more then they wound up being.
Military brat hood is a drafted position most military brats are for the most part born into that position. Oliver North said the position off spring of a military member is drafted. It is just simply the life we know. We do not know any other lifestyle. It is simply our parents job. The commisary and base exchange are mundane common facts of our life taken for granted. The position of military brat is not without its perks. I have seen the inside of a high tech equipment. My sister got stick time in the Ft.Hood Huey simulator in fall of 1983. I have seen the inside of Chinook simulator. There for those who are active military the unique aspects of base life. Our parents work place is interesting. We get to see it from time to time. I have seen Hanchey heliport and the cafe there on one occasion. Other military brats have their stories. There are long absences of parents long deployments which make up the bulk of life for a military brat.
Aviation is dangerous. I was in 2nd grade when the hazards of military aviation were made known. A face I knew early in my life ceased to be as a Cobra hit a group of wires in the vicinity of Ft. Hood. The other man in the helicopter whom I did not I remember the funeral service of at Ft. Sam. That was a real family that grieved. The TAPS was played was for a man who died serving his nation. Their was some media coverage of it. Guardsman died. In a few seconds a cow worker of my father who was friendly to me as a kid was dead. That wrecked Cobra on a flatbed had in it at one time a man who kidded with me as a 4 year old. Two families grieved partially in the spotlight. A loved one died. Media coverage can rub salt into wounds I remember seeing a TV cam outside the church I attended in college after the pastor of youth college and singles died in a plane crash. I parked my car for the service and went in at an entrance 10 yards away.
For them it was mommy and daddy coming home for a long trip. They were gathered at the bleachers of a place of work for their parent. NASA was simply put a place where mommy and daddy worked another base. Mother and Father were in a Spaceship coming home. For me I was visiting my folks....I was a substitute teacher at the time my father still a pilot Army National Guard. I had plans to enjoy the Comal and Landa Lake. I was a bit bummed the flight path of the Colombia was not going to allow me to see it. I had seen it once before leave a small thin glowing streak against the black sky. A daughter of San Antonio streaked over her hometown at hypersonic speeds. While my NASA feelings had turned negative I still had an appreciation of the shuttle. Space flight was still interesting. I had a news channel watching the landing. As I found out sons and daughters fellow military brats on TV realized their parents whose arrival they eagerly anticipated died. They found out live on National TV. My mother had served breakfast and we were listening my father was about to call his boss in Austin as the debris field was being identified then the phone rings.
The phone rang in other houses and Saturday plans were changed as an event witnessed on TV with the phone call became a force that changed family plans. Aviators had to be close to a phone easily accessible in case the relief effort called for the use Texas Army National Guard Aviation assets. Personal lives were altered far removed from the accident as what was on TV came into the home in a far more real way. Seven families lost loved ones lives the first moments of their grief was a national story. The family members of those on Colombia had their life changing moment on National TV. The phone calls every member of those families called had to adjust a Saturday. There annoyance was held in check by the knowledge half a continent away other military families were suffering far greater. Each of those families near Austin had adapted. It is safe to say the plans they had before the shuttle landing were different then what happend after the Shuttle landed. Each family member coped in their own ways. As for the families of the seven the funerals went on TAPS was played at grave sides those at funerals like other children who lost a parent. Their moment of shock a part of national memory their life real their grief real. There humanity no less real then any other mother and father died at work. Life goes on the parent is still gone and the reality of the moment does not cease after the credits roll. The script has to be written by those whose parents deaths was a news event played out on live TV.