National Museum of the US Airforce

[Dr.Donna]

This weekend, our cub scout pack took a trip to the Wright Patterson National Museum of the US Air Force. If you've never visited or heard about it, this is its website: http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/.

The trip was good. The boys had a great time. Seeing the history of the Air Force had an effect on me that was unexpected. I expected to see the history of the planes and I knew there would be a lot of history on the Air Force's roll in wars. What I wasn't expecting was the glorification of America's ability to efficiently wipe out larger and larger numbers of human beings.

The tour begins with a model of the Wright brothers' 1909 model - a technological breakthrough, to say the least. Within just a few years (about 1920), we have people using firearms from the planes). Through the rest of the museum, the guns get bigger, faster and more accurate. The ability to drop bombs are added and the bombs get bigger and more accurate. Finally, missiles are added - and these get bigger and more accurate. As the tour finishes, we see replicas of thermonuclear warheads that culminates with visitors entering a missile silo.

What is most shocking to me was the clear absence of the human trajedy associated with these weapons. Other than a one-hallway long tribute to survivors/victims of the Halocaust, very little mention is made about the loss of human life associated with wars and other acts of aggression. Plane nose art that include marks of "numbers of hits" was glorified without notice of the lives ended by each (one mark often represented five bombs).

I don't think the cub scouts "got it" and that makes me very sad. I think many of them took away images of the "cool planes" (universally the acrobatic jet fighter planes) and a very romanticized version of war. My five year old now wishes to be a "war pilot" when he grows up. I am so disheartened by this. How can our culture possibly be wishing for a peaceful Earth while simultaneously glorifying war and holding the people delivering death in our name to be heroes?

If we, as a society, cannot begin to understand the value of human lives, it makes me very sad for the future of our world.

[zeenakwon]

Mar. 22, 2010 at 10:07 PM

I remember at the Air Space Museum they had an exhibition of the atom bomb the end of WW2.  I was appalled how "celebrated"  it was about killing, and permanently damaging, so many people.

I think as a country we need to understand humility and start valuing human beings and life more.

[science_spot]

Mar. 23, 2010 at 6:12 AM

Aw, that's crappy the kids didn't see the same thing you did.  To be fair, I wouldn't have, either.  I would have just wanted to get inside one and see how it works.

We raise a good point in wondering how we can focus on peace while we teach about war and ignore the value of human life.  The answer, as you already know... we can't.

[emily7707]

Mar. 23, 2010 at 7:06 PM

I agree with you completely.

[arthistmom]

Mar. 24, 2010 at 1:04 AM

Unless a child is precociously sensitive, I wouldn't expect a normal five-year-old to "get" the greater significance of the museum display either. But I think as parents we have it within our power to counteract ideas such as these that we don't value and make clear (and repeatedly) those things that we DO value. It certainly makes our job as parents more challenging, given what our kiddos are up against out there.