21 Aircraft flyover for President Bush...

FWIW, I don't find profound respect for GHWB and profound loathing for DJT to be in any way inconsistent. Other than the letter which (somewhat arbitrarily) goes behind their names, they could not be more different humans, AFAICT. The difference might be even more obvious DUE to the fact that they had the same nominal political affiliation. One was a decent, kind, thoughtful war Veteran, and a "quiet professional" diplomat, who had political opinions with which one might disagree, and whose political careeer might even have been a certain instantiation of WASPy privilege, but had possibly the best resume for leadership of any President, ever. The other, well, let's be generous and say "isn't any of those things". Make of that what you will. I can't speak for GHWB, and I don't mean to present him as a Saint, either. But I do very much hope that he was too busy watching Columbo and holding Barb's hand to take too much notice of The Orange One. That would have been beneath him.
 
Despite the fact that Trump doesn't act very presidential, I'm not quite ready to dismiss respect for the office, tradition, and ceremony. Trump is a political aberration. The parting on left is now parting on the right. Please tip your waitress and bartender.
 
knot4u said:
Yes. It was not a derogatory term when I grew up, it was a medical diagnosis. Using it as an insult is wrong.
Why did you bring Trump into this thread? George HW didn't even support him, nor did he apparently vote for him, Trump has no place in this conversation but you just had to think you would appear clever if you found a way to drag this thread down the same old rabbit hole, it makes you look like a disrespectful, petulant ass.
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You realize you're the only one making an issue and getting upset about this, right?
 
@NovemberEcho I'm kinda with you on this. Its almost two weeks. I admit I didn't watch any of the presidential fanfair (I think it's weird) but I get it this is something people feel is important. Get closure however you want, I didn't know the guy personally, its not like Ben passed all over again.

There is no way to get around the fact GHWB was a war hero, maybe one of the most successful men on Earth, and a good man. The world is less for him being out of it. But anything past a week, and after that much effing fanfair, to believe there hasnt been enough time for grieving and closure is effing insane. It's over, and it WOULDNT BE PRUDENT, AT THIS JUNCTURE, to continue acting like he died yesterday and his surviving family is in the living room.

Merry Chistmas
 
Pilot Fighter said:
Nothing additional.
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Agreed. For those that took part, all were going to be paid their salary either way, and those flight hours needed flying either way as well......actually, anytime in Q1 that you can fly is a good thing, because the holidays and bad wx generally force all kinds of weird ingenuity to burn the quarterly flight hour grant that CNAL/CNAP provides. That in of itself is a bit of a broken system, but that is neither here nor there. In short, very few additional dollars were spent that wouldn't have been spent doing something else less historic.

FWIW, military funeral flyovers are not specific to deceased Presidents. Senior retired military aviators (think General/Flag officer) routinely get one, as do most anyone who has died in the line of duty, flying in the service regardless of rank. The scale of this flyover was larger than most, but it is a time honored tradition that we try to keep for any of our brethren.

I am not really one to get really fired up about politics, and I am dangerously in the middle in terms of my own values, but I will say that for guys of my generation (i.e. most of the folks involved in the flyover), we remember being kids in grade school and (for the more senior) middle school when President Bush was announcing the beginning of airstrikes in Jan 1991. We remember him during the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union. Some people who have an interest in history would also note the enormous part he had in the 20 years of diplomatic and military history leading up to the defeat we dealt to the Soviets (or at least in our part of encouraging their own terrible decision making with the same end result). I don't agree with all of his beliefs, and you better believe that the day he defeated Dukakis was a cold day in my parent's house, but in hindsight, he was a good man IMHO who wanted the best for our country.
 
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