It's déja vu all over again

On the national news, the main topic of interest seems to be the Covid 19 crisis, getting the shot, masking and social distancing. On a few occasions, we also see mention of all of our troops pulling out of Afghanistan. Rarely noted is the Taliban moving in to take over the whole country. We promise to help support their Air Force which we helped build over the past twenty years and to drop munitions on large groups of the invading Taliban when needed. To your old columnist, it is all reminiscent of our exit from the war in Vietnam.

To good news now. McCook did itself proud this past Friday. You may know that your columnist sits on the Board of Commissioners for the Aeronautics Division of the Nebraska Department of Transportation. We meet quarterly and it has always been at their office at the Lincoln Airport. At our meeting in April the Department Director, Ann Richart, announced that it would be a good idea to meet at locations in other parts of the state and that she had chosen McCook to be first.

By title, our City Manager, Nate Schneider, is also our McCook Airport Manager. In actuality, it is Kyle Potthoff who manages the airport along with his nine other divisions of street and utilities. There is also an Airport Advisory group that meets occasionally to make recommendations concerning our airport. Ken Vontz is the city worker who does a superlative job of keeping the airport grounds in order, the hangars repaired, and the hundred and one other small jobs at our facility.

The commission meeting was held in the large upstairs fire training room at the new city building. A great modern room with a large screen and electronics enabling a “zoom” connection. Lunch provided. The Commission went through its regular business of authorizing the spending of aviation fuel “gas” tax revenue for various engineering projects to maintain runways and build hangars at several airports in Nebraska.

A highlight was city manager Schneider briefing all present of the good things available in McCook, our business, the lodging, and excellent restaurants that make this an attraction for a large area of Southwest Nebraska. Several other guests participated by making positive comments about our wonderful city.

Ann Richart commented to the group that we had set a “high bar” for other communities to meet for future meetings. McCook proud!

Following the meeting, the Division staff and Commissioners traveled back to our airport where this long-time aficionado conducted a tour of our airport facilities. They then boarded the State aircraft, a King Air 90, and departed back to Lincoln.

Now back to personal opinion. It was true that our CIA got us into a war with our neighbor Cuba when Castro made his Communistic takeover of that Island. Then-President Kennedy botched the CIA Bay of Pigs debacle with the Cuban Crisis to follow. We didn’t invade with our U.S. military and the poor people there have suffered since.

In Afghanistan again our CIA saw a great opportunity after the Russian takeover of that country collapsed and they departed the area. Of course Osama bin Laden had orchestrated the destruction we experienced on 9-11 from there so we had an excuse to use our military and invade that land-locked God-forsaken country. Twenty years later after spending billions of dollars and all too many service-related deaths and injuries we are withdrawing to leave all those friendly Afganees who helped us over the years to either become refugees or suffer at the hands of the Taliban. Not a good outcome for them or a great legacy for our country. My question is why?

Vietnam was my war and again we didn’t cover ourselves in glory. Yes, we got our military involved at the somewhat questionable Gulf of Tonkin Incident where North Vietnamese PT boats supposedly fired at and harassed one of our destroyers. Again billions of dollars were spent and thousands of our military killed before we cut and ran due to politics back home. Thousands of refugees and thousands more of our South Vietnamese friends were tortured and killed when we left.

Yes, I was there as early as 1967 and wondered at the time how we, the U.S. had constructed all the large airbases that we flew from in Thailand. One base Tak Li primarily an F-105 base but also included some of our tankers had been a Japanese airbase in WWII but we had made huge improvements for the Royal Thai Air Force. Most of the other bases were new construction and we had only gotten officially involved in that war in 1964 at the earliest. Never acknowledged but flying over a large unpopulated plain in northern Thailand we spotted a very large concrete runway, vacant of any buildings or other improvements and unmarked on our charts. It looked able to handle any or our combat aircraft. Was it planned for another fighter base? No answers. Yes if the story could be unclassified one can find that our CIA again had done a huge buildup long before the Gulf of Tonkin Incident got us officially into that war.

Who controls the CIA? Yes, I know it is our huge governmental bureaucracy in Washington D.C. Who are our elected officials that oversee the agency? Possibly their decisions for the role of that huge agency should see more of the light of day rather than hiding behind classified classified classified and we who pay the bills can temper some of their ill-fated meddling in the affairs or our world.

Now snippets of national news highlight the Independent Island Nation of Taiwan. China considers Taiwan as a rogue province and evidently has designs of invading and taking control of that dynamic western-style economy much like they did taking over Hong Kong. We the U.S. already have a military presence there. I personally flew tanker sorties from a Taiwanese Air Base called CCK. Is the CIA meddling there out of sight? Do we help protect Taiwan in case of an invasion of the Chinese Communist Military? It would be a huge undertaking and might even get us into a nuclear war with the largest military in today’s world. All I can say is stay tuned.

That is how I saw it.

Dick Trail