“Nuns must not be too spiritual, and must endeavour to be experts in humanity in order that convent life is not purgatory.”

—-    Pope Francis, Oct. 4th, to the nuns at the Santa Chiara cloistered convent in Assisi

— Comments —

Paul writes:

I am not steeped in Catholic theology or in the Magisterium so as to deal with the current Pope’s seemingly bizarre statements.  But I am (or was) steeped in U.S. aircraft knowledge.

And you chose a fine aircraft: the F 15, which entered service about 1978 and was unequaled for many years.  It still serves as America’s primary air superiority fighter but is being or has been overtaken by stealth technology.  It is a big aircraft as most American military aircraft are because America chooses long range aircraft and because America has many different foes.  For example, in a Middle East scenario way back in the 70s, America’s Air Force and Naval aircraft could cover the entire Saudi Arabian peninsula but nobody else’s could.  I used to war game (e.g., Yom Kippur), and this was a major advantage.  The game developers always made things realistic; that is, they did not pick easy battles but hard cases (Stalingrad, Yom Kippur, Operation Barbarossa) that they knew were fifty-fifty.  So it was hard to win.  I can still hear my opponents: “Move already.”  These were large, elaborate board games, before computers.  They were great for learning geography and history; as a result, I used to kill anyone, except a fellow gamer, when playing the easy game of Life.  The American military has dramatically changed in the interim, and now America wants to throw more and more of its money into social holes-in-the-water, not to mention the grotesque entrance of women.

Once I kept my poor father until dusk at a yearly airshow at our second Naval Air Station (my grandfather built the first Naval station, which might still be active) because I wanted to see the local Air Force squadron’s F-15s fly.  The head of the shows knew what fanatics liked and always saved the best for last.  These were all-day affairs.  But actually the best aircraft to see at an air show is the F-4 Phantom (1963) interceptor-fighter-bomber, which has long been retired from the U.S. but still serves as the primary aircraft of many countries such as Turkey, a NATO member.  It is extremely big, long-range, fast, and loud.  They would not announce them.  They would come out of nowhere (being supersonic, Mach 2.8) flying low and blast everyone’s eardrums.  I knew, from experience, they would introduce the airshow about noon, so I made sure I would get there to see them.  My poor father also had to endure my aggressive driving so as to get there on time;  the least effort was cutting in at the very front of the mile or so line of cars.  (We are talking about 80,000-100,000 people back then.)  He was no saint historically, but my mother had tamed him by then, but not me.  Dad never told Ma.

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