July 2002 Archives

By Vincent F. Safuto staff writer

July 22, 2002

Aug. 2, 1982.

Ronald Reagan was president, the USS Intrepid museum opened in New York City that day and the world was a much different place.

And I was going home. Back to Elmhurst, N.Y., and my parents' home after four years in the Marine Corps.

In October 1978, just before boot camp graduation when I got my first military identification card, the expiration date had seemed an eternity away. At that time, Aug. 2, 1982, might as well have been Aug. 2, 2002. To a 17-year-old coming to grips with military discipline, even next week seems to be an incredibly distant time.

But the day had finally come. I said goodbye to the crew in VMA-513 Avionics, said goodbye to the squadron's Harrier jets and walked away from the "Hootowl" hangar at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Ariz., for the last time.

If I thought there was a ton of paperwork involved in getting into the Marine Corps, there was even more in getting out.

Funny how things stay with you. I still remember the flight home: Yuma to Phoenix to Dallas-Fort Worth to JFK. Unlike my return from Marine boot camp, my first sight of the city wasn't the World Trade Center.

It was the weirdest feeling in the world. After four years of living life as a military man, I was a civilian again. No more high-and-tight haircuts, no more duty-section musters and no more stuffing those E-A-Rs in my ears when I walked on the flight line.

Yuma was a training base for F-4 Phantom and A-4 Skyhawk pilots, though those planes would soon be replaced by the F/A-18, which was still undergoing flight testing.

It was an invigorating sight, sound and smell on the flight line, as the F-4s would taxi for takeoff and run up their engines, black smoke flowing from the tailpipes.

Then the pilot would light the afterburners. In the early morning or late afternoon, you'd see the twin flames trailing a few feet behind the engines as the plane roared past and into the sky. Then, like a light switch being turned off, the afterburners would be shut down.

When their squadrons visited, we'd marvel at the F-14s as they flew over for the midfield break, wings swept back, fly the pattern with the wings slowly coming out, then come in to land with the wings extended.

A wide variety of aircraft would visit Yuma, including even Air Force F-15s. The Airedales would sneer at our little Marine Corps base and gag at our chow hall, while we Marine aviation types would show them how real military types marched and stood tall.

But we loved their sleek fighter planes.

Just before I left the Marines, I was part of a deployment to Naval Air Station Fallon in Nevada. We rode there and back in a C-141 transport. Flying as a passenger is fun, unless the plane has no windows.

I've sometimes wondered how my life would have been had I stayed in the Marines. I never regretted leaving, though, and see it as an experience I'll never forget.



Vincent F. Safuto is a copy editor for the Press Journal. Reach him at (Vincent.Safuto@scripps.com).


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By Vincent F. Safuto Staff writer

July 15, 2002

I f there's one phrase I've had ringing in my ears in my life, it's the admonition, usually from someone in authority, to "quit complaining."

It's one I've gleefully ignored. When I worked for the post office, I took my complaints and ideas right to the tippy top of the organization by daring to directly address the postmaster general in letters detailing management incompetence, misconduct and corruption.

Usually, I'd get an angry letter from some lower-level functionary, demanding that I stop bothering the boss with things he'd rather not know about, and occasionally relaying threats of dire consequences.

Which brings me to Independence Day. The festivities should include a reading of the Declaration of Independence, a brilliantly reasoned list of complaints and grievances.

Most people know the first words and perhaps the last words, and that John Hancock signed his name large so King George III would be sure to see it. But how many people have really read this document?

My blood stirs as Thomas Jefferson lists, one after another, the offenses the king committed: the usurpations, the violations of rights. The anger and frustration show in every word, as a system of governance hitherto never successfully challenged is taken apart phrase by phrase.

What did the representatives at the Continental Congress want? Their rights. Their rights as Englishmen. And if they couldn't have those rights from the current boss, why they'd set up their own nation and secure those rights for themselves and their fellow citizens.

I marvel at the audacity of these men, flinging down the gauntlet on a pre-eminent British Empire.

It's a lesson for us all that, instead of suffering in silence, bowing and scraping to a distant ruler, they did it. They wrote it down for all to see, and for posterity to wonder at, and threw it in King George's face.

We need to recognize the events of the summer of 1776 not just on one day, but every day. Enemies not only foreign but also domestic would love to take our freedom and prosperity from us, just as King George sought to effect the financial ruination of those 13 colonies.

We need to have in our lives the heart and soul of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and those brave signers when we decide that we will be the arbiters of our fate.

We need to remember what they risked everything for when we tell our elected officials what we need them to do and if they don't do it, to send them packing.

There are those who want us just to be quiet, not to make waves, to let the people in charge handle things. Folks, I have news for you: We are the people in charge.

A young man once asked ex-slave Frederick Douglass what he should do with his life.

Douglass replied: "Agitate, agitate, agitate!"

That's what we all should do, to be true to our heritage.

Vincent F. Safuto is a copy editor for the Press Journal. Reach him at (Vincent.Safuto@scripps.com).

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July 2, 2002

Like most boys who grew up in the late '60s and early '70s, I wondered why some toys never performed as expected.

Commercials showed the Johnny Lightning 500 action set, with its die-cast metal cars zipping around the plastic track and providing tons of fun. But when I got it for Christmas and tried to use it, the cars went flying every which way except on the tracks, it seemed.

"Camera tricks," my wise, all-knowing parents said. That's how the makers would get impressionable kids to believe toys would work as advertised. The result was anger and disappointment, and we thought we'd learned a lesson.

Boy, were we ever wrong.

Welcome to the wonderful world of accounting tricks.

Back when Enron collapsed, the media were filled with stories about tearful workers being ejected from their workplaces with little or no severance (mostly no) by security guards while top executives reaped retention bonuses.

According to The New York Times, it happened again. WorldCom's sales leaders were taking in the sun at Maui while the ordinary WorldCom workers were getting the bum's rush. Nice work if you can get it.

We're not supposed to be angry about all this suffering. After all, this is the genius of capitalism, the creative destruction that is supposed to power our economy. So far, though, it's been a continued effort to turn most Americans into minimum-wage, no-benefit laborers. Our elected officials fiddle about non-issues like the Pledge of Allegiance and prayer in schools while the economic underpinnings of our country are going "poof" before our very eyes.

Maybe there's hope. After getting themselves photographed next to children reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, members of Congress have awakened from their June swoon and are going to look into this whole corporate swindling thing.

Even President Bush has become concerned about what is happening. Of course, it's nearing that tough exam called the "mid-term election" and the unemployed hordes are howling for a blue-blood bloodbath, so maybe it's time for a little compassion from the commander in chief.

I'd like to think that our political and business leaders will at least make an effort, but the cynic in me wonders if it'll be the same old dog-and-pony show: corporate leaders beating their breasts about their misdeeds, apologizing to the American public for lying, cheating and stealing, and then returning to their guard-gated mansions to ponder their sins and their severance.

Members of Congress will pontificate for the C-SPAN cameras, the bureaucrats who were supposed to protect us from the wolves will demand more laws and, ultimately, a few token and unenforceable measures will be threatened or perhaps passed. Corporations will cast their bread upon the Congress and any effective business legislation or regulation will die on the vine.

There are honest business people out there, and they are unfairly tarred with the same brush. The test of true integrity is not to hide bad news with accounting tricks but to be honest, up front and open. One less-than-optimal quarter is not the end of the world, and honesty is always the best policy.

Vincent F. Safuto is a copy editor for the Press Journal. Reach him at (Vincent.Safuto@scripps.com).

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