To the society-wrecking Didn’t Earn It rule.

The Pursuit of Excellence
Amazon’s Blue Angels reminds us that there are still places where excellence is the rule, rather than the exception.

These days, it’s very easy to become disillusioned as an American citizen. Spend any time at all watching what passes for “the news” and it quickly becomes clear that this country is facing an acute crisis of competency. We have Federal Court Justice nominees willing to admit in televised hearings, without shame, that they don’t know the most basic facts about what is in the United States Constitution. We have senior Government officials who can’t keep the ports open or the borders closed. And we are a country where the survival of storied American companies is in jeopardy because they can’t manage to bolt a door onto an airplane properly, successfully market beer, the easiest-to-sell product humans have ever created, or make movies that people actually want to see.

Which is why I think it’s important for every American to watch the new JJ Abrams-produced Amazon documentary THE BLUE ANGELS. It is a fine reminder that there are still institutions in this Nation where the bare minimum standard is excellence, and where perfection is pursued relentlessly, even though it may be an unattainable goal.

There are 141 men and women in the Blue Angels unit, but only 6 of them fly the iconic blue and yellow F-18s. The rest are support staff…everything from the Doctor to the Crew Chiefs who make sure the jets are ready and safe to fly, to the mechanics and the supply officers who load the unit’s gear onto the C-130 Hercules nicknamed “Fat Albert.” These latter are not the stars of the show, but you wouldn’t know it to watch them work. The pride of being part of an elite unit where success depends on everyone…everyone…pursuing excellence in everything they do is evident in the smiles on their faces, the exuberant high-fives and the choreographed celebrations that come with the completion of even the smallest tasks.

Watch the men and women in the unit as they say goodbye to one another at the end of a successful season and you’ll see what being a part of an institution where excellence is the minimum acceptable standard does to the human spirit. Everyone, from the “Boss” to the most junior supply officer seems to radiate joy.

In The Blue Angels, we see a world where corrosive concepts like Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) have not been able to gain a foothold, because they are unnecessary. Institutions like The Blue Angels, where the only thing that stands between the pilots and death is everyone on the team performing at the absolute top of their game, don’t need DEI because when you take only the very best, you wind up with a team that “looks like America.” Because that’s what America is and that’s who Americans are.

DEI would destroy the Blue Angels because it creates distrust, that is its very nature. And as the Blue Angels’ Commander points out during a segment on crew selection, when you’re flying a cluster of fighter aircraft at near supersonic speeds only twelve inches apart, no one cares about gender or skin color…they only care about two things…“are you the best?” and “can I trust you?”

As you look at the Blue Angels crew you quickly notice that men and women of color are, if anything, over-represented relative to their raw population numbers. It’s tempting to conclude that this is what happens to “marginalized” populations when you raise standards and expectations, rather than lower them. To take it a step further, it may be that within this small microcosm of military readiness are the solutions to many of the worst problems currently plauging our culture.

“Tempting to conclude etc,” is it? That’s a whale of a dodge, seems to me, and a damned dangerous one too; it’s as obvious as it is inescapable, more like, a hard-nosed reality that shitlib imbeciles have spent many years laboring to ignore, denigrate, and supplant in favor of the very PC gibberish that has been the ruination of this once-great nation.

My dear departed Naval-aviator cousin Reggie, who used to post here back in the day as Cuz Regbo, traveled with the Blues for several months trying to decide whether to accept their offer to join. Eventually he declined, opting instead for a stint at the Naval War College. Not that Reg didn’t have tremendous respect for the Blue Angels team, of course; he did. He just felt that the War College would be a better move strictly in terms of career advancement. As I told him then, just being invited to try out at all for the Blues was an achievement of the highest imaginable order.

Reggie’s choice to put career advancement over the powerfully alluring pleasures of one more year of cutting-edge jet-jockeying would soon prove to be the right one, as fate would have it. He was already closing in on the age-out point of his fighter-flying days anyway, he knew. Meanwhile, his Master’s-level course of instruction in

• How to drink continuously at parties, for hours, without losing your composure, your politesse, your above-the-fray dignity and suavete, and your basic power of coherent speech
• How to schmooze courteously with contemptible, toadying, diplo-dink rumpswabs to whom you ordinarily wouldn’t lower yourself to even speak
• Which fancy-schmancy fork goes on which side of the fancy-schmancy plate, and why you absolutely MUST pretend it matters
• The proper care, arranging, and wearing of the US Navy Formal Dress Uniform (Officer, Male), as specified by the CNO
• Sundry other arcane intricacies of life as a fully-functioning US Embassy überweenie

led to plum appointments first as Assistant Naval Attaché to France, then as Naval Attaché to Argentina—where poor Regbo wound up dying much too young of a massive heart attack whilst driving in to work at the Embassy there—heart attacks long having been the bane of all Carpenters and Painters, tragically enough. His immediate family still misses that boy terribly, as do his colleagues, as do I myself.

Anyhoo, as Stephen notes, “Demand excellence and you’ll get it.” True, dat. As is my corollary: settle for less, and you…won’t. The past few years have provided proof aplenty of that proposition—all anybody ought to need and then some, I should think.

Update! What the hey, here’s a pic of me and Regbo in happier days, at an airshow he flew a demo in.

Got no idea why we picked that particular F18 to pose in front of, it ain’t Reggie’s plane—the one with Regbo’s handle stenciled under the canopy was parked up nearby, if I remember right. Guess we were just too damned lazy to shag our tired asses over there for the photo. The cap I have on was a gift from Reg which I still wear all the time to this very day, featuring the logo and artwork of the squadron Reg commanded: Strike Fighter Squadron VFA83, the Rampagers. You oughta see that poor, battered old Rampager hat today, I’ve wore that thing slap out.

A rowdy, a rakehell, a fun-loving, happy-go-lucky rapscallion his entire life long, that was CAPT Reggie P Carpenter. Still can hardly believe he’s gone, bless his soul.