Bad Timing, Part II

This is not a continuation of Friday's griping session. Yet, once again, it is a tale of bad timing. The tale begins when friends of ours traveled all the way from Gettysburg, Pa. to visit us and to visit the new Air and Space Annex right up the road from where we live.

It was a beautiful day, complete with big, puffy white clouds interspersed with clear blue sky, which for the northeast in August is a rarity unto iteself. Dave, Maria and Christie, their amazingly bright and well-mannered  little girl of 8, Wiggle and I arrived at the museum about 10 where our purses and camera bags were searched and flashlighted....yes, they tried to peer into my purse, but it was so small and packed full I don't know what they could have seen....

Anyway, after that hassle, we rode up to the observation deck, saw some planes, figured out we could have seen where we live except for all the trees, and walked around the museum until about 12:30 or so when we stopped at the Subway inside the museum for lunch.

We were not finished yet, when a voice comes over the loud speaker that we are to all move to the entrance of the building. Of course, we are the farthest point from that location as luck would have it, so it took forever. "They're not taking my food," Dave announced as he held his boxed lunch close to his chest.  Then we were told that the museum was now closed but it was not an "emergency" situation. I think Dave and Maria were concerned about terrorist attacks but when I heard the word "protesters" I knew right then what the trouble was. We didn't find out for sure though until the nightly news later. It made the scroll line at the bottom! I guess they just wanted to clear out the place so they could bust some heads or something! That ended our visit to the museum. It made me not want to visit there again.

I felt it was a complete over-reaction on the part of museum officials to evaculate everyone so a handful  of protesters could raise our conciousness or something by throwing things at the Enola Gay. All they managed to do was, for a couple of hours anyway, ruin people's attempt to learn something about the history of flight (the Enola Gay was just one of hundreds of exhibits covering our entire history of flight).

Am I missing something here? The Enola Gay is a piece of history. The event happened and nothing we do now will every undo that. It did something that lots of people find represensible at the hands of those who cared little for the lives of innocent civilians. But isn't its very presence at the museum a reminder of what humans are capable of? I know it made me uncomfortable. I didn't need protesters telling me it was wrong. I already know it was. It was, like slavery, a horrific low in America's history.

Granted, there are folks who don't see it this way, but they won't be swayed by what they see as wacko leftist activists. Instead, it hardens them in their opinions. They begin to take on a defensive position. I've seen this happen with my husband.

In addition, the Enola Gay is sitting in a museum where it will not ever drop anything on anyone ever again. No one is even suggesting we drop any more atomic bombs on Japan or anywhere else. We have much more sophisticated weaponry now that can target military installations, not wipe out cities....and you wanna know why? Because most Americans would not tolerate that kind of horror again.

So, after giving it much thought, I came down on the side that the Enola Gay belongs in a museum and should be displayed, not because people will think how great it is to bomb cities, but as a reminder to us all. We're all human. We all fail. But I think people need to know what really happened in history, no matter how horrible, so that we are not doomed to repeat it.