Commentary:

Support our military, but never unquestioningly

Poppy at Patridiot Watch is somewhat annoyed at remarks made by some National Guard officers in reference to the recent incident involving machine gun fire from an aircraft hitting an elementary school in New Jersey.

Statments like "Think back in your memory to Sept. 11, when all the air traffic was grounded and the only sound you heard was our F-16s flying over New Jersey," while factually true do nothing to address concerns expressed by parents, such as "Because we're at war now, I'm very sensitive to all the military's burdens. We all want to be safe and secure. But we're also concerned about our children. I'm afraid something's going to go wrong. We really need to know where those bullets are going." While the remarks by the officers are not unreasonable and the reaction at Patridiot Watch is fueled more by heated outrage than calm analysis, invoking the spectre of 9/11 when a SNAFU occurs in relation to the military is NOT good public relations with your neighbors, especially when bullets from your aircraft lodged in some desks of their children at their elementary school, even if children were not present at the time...

This is a very sensitive situation, and I would expect the National Guard to ensure it is handled appropriately. Statements by officers along the lines of those reported are not helpful, and in fact end up giving the military an air of arrogance epitomized by the statement "Let 'em alone; they're over there putting their lives on the line for us. That guy (the pilot) probably feels so bad about this. He's probably going to get sent overseas and he might not even come back. As long as no one got hurt, this whole thing should just be forgotten." What if a child had been hurt, or even more nightmarish, killed? We cannot prevent it from reoccurring if we "just forget about it" and do not investigate the incident thoroughly. Expecting unquestioning support for the military, especially in a situation like this which did NOT occur in a combat zone, is not healthy in democracy. Insistence on a "pass" because of 9/11 is not only in very bad taste, but is the first step on the road to the military thinking they are better than the citizenry they are charged to protect.

Screw-ups happen. That is a fact of life that reasonable people understand and in almost any other similar situation where stray fire hit a different structure the reaction would be far more muted, but people are rarely reasonable when it comes to perceived threats to their children. This should be acknowledged and handled appropriately, definitely not "just be forgotten."

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An additional article on this story based upon reporting by the Associated Press can be found at ABC News.