I want to clarify an article I just saw.

[Rologton]

So, two people on my Facebook timeline posted this article which is essentially a complaint about all of the military members and the flyover that happened during the Super Bowl last night. I don't know if anybody else saw this or if anybody cares, but it's such a misinformed little article that I can't help but want to inform it a little bit.

tl;dr of the article is that the writer is essentially knocking the fact that the DoD spent around $100,000 dollars on the flyover during the Super Bowl last night, which involved helicopters being flown by members of the 101st Airborne and F-16 pilots patrolling the air ways they flew through to ensure that it remained a no fly zone. The writer also mentions the Military color guard and the 32 members of the armed forces involved in the chorus that sang the National Anthem.

Ok, I'm going to start with the whole color guard/chorus thing. The military does color guards for EVERYTHING. I have been part of color guards for college sports games, holiday ceremonies and even high school awards ceremonies. They're not hard and, especially if the event is televised, they are a simple act that improves public relations. Anyway, if not the military it would have been police officers or firefighters out there, which isn't much of a difference. And if I'm going to be honest, putting the 32 members of the chorus in a negative light is just so petty. How is it a problem that the DoD was willing to send people that volunteer to serve for your country to the biggest sporting event in the nation to sing the National Anthem of the country they wear the uniform for an issue in any way? Members of the military are given free tickets to major events like this all of the time. It's a kind gesture and I can assure you something that made everybody there very proud and very happy last night.

Now to the flyover. What many people don't know and what the writer clearly doesn't understand is that all of the money the DoD spent on putting those aircrafts in the air was going to be spent anyway. Every pilot of any aircraft in the military is required to log a certain number of hours flying each year to ensure that they remain proficient in flying. That $100grand was going to be spent paying the pilots, their crews, fueling and maintaining the aircraft at some point this year anyway, at least doing this brought joy to people and gave the pilots a nice story to tell. Seriously, pilots will look for any excuse to fly for a reason other than "I just have to be in the air." Every year aviators from the National Guard fly around cadets in my ROTC program just to give them the experience of being in a helicopter. Sometimes we get helos from them to fly us to training events. This happens because pilots are going to have to fly anyway, and this way they have something to do with it and could treat it as a training event.

And that's my rant.

tl;dr: The DoD wastes staggering amounts of money every year on things significantly stupider than a flyover during the Super Bowl. The author of the article was just looking for something else to complain about and didn't do his research.

[Maringue]

If anything the military should bill the NFL for providing the security and no fly zone.

But more to the point, people like this piss me off. I get it that our government is running a deficit, but maybe look at the big picture (as you said, those pilots have to log a certain number of hours each year to maintain combat readiness). Don't argue that the 100 grand that needed to be spent is the problem. The DoD has a 500 Billion dollar budget and this moron wants to gripe about 100k? Why not complain when Senators push through a new, unwanted gadget that is built in their district at the cost of a few billion?

If you want to complain about something, complain about military contractors. Bush popularized the contracting out of work that the military used to do itself because they thought it would be cheaper (and by cheaper, they meant off the books). I still don't understand how some of these ultra pro-military politicians can stand there and say they support the military when they are contracting out their jobs to people making anywhere between 3 and 10 times as much money. The whole "the free market will make everything better" thing doesn't work since security clearance removes the free from the market. So they are just paying more for the same amount of work.

I can't imagine how on duty troops feel when they see assholes from Blackwater drive by, doing the exact same job, for 5 times the money as they are getting.

[Ron Swansons Stache]

Aren't those flyovers technically also advertising for the military branches? I mean, yeah, no one is going to sign up for the military when they see a flyover at the Super Bowl but it's still a subtle marketing trick.