A Story From My Youth — or why I stopped flying

This is a story I've not told very many people. It’s something that for quite a while during my teens affected me greatly. It’s also the reason why I’m now against violence, and try never to use it.

When I was about seven or eight years old, I'd recently quit bicycle racing, and decided I'd do something different — it was more me being a whimp than anything else, but that’s a story for another time. After quitting, I took a few weeks to find the next hobby, it was then that my mother introduced me to the idea of learning about planes and learning to fly.

Flying through the sky has always captured my interest.

As an eight years old boy, the idea of flying paired well with my other interests, such as engineering and design. I loved reading engineering books as a kid, learning about how things worked, how we build things. For example, how the deep earth mines, are dug with heat exchanges and ventilation ducts to supply workers with fresh cool air. Or, perhaps how the construction of the SS Great Eastern featured a double-skinned hull to prevent it from sinking. Or, perhaps how they built the Brooklyn Bridge by sinking caissons into the river so that workers could build the pylons.

For me, how the human race came to fly is no different.

For me, how the human race came to fly is no different. Everyday we launch tubes made of metal and plastic thousands of feet into the air. We propel these tubes with the liquefied remains of trees that grew millions of years ago. These tubes carry us across the great seas, and over vast land masses, to exciting foreign lands. That is something that still amazes me. That is flight.

With my interest in engineering and learning about how things work, I joined the Australian Air League. This is a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to teaching the Australian youth about aviation. Apart from learning about aviation, we also were taught flag bearing, drill marching, and marching band instruments.

Of the many memories I have from my time in the Air League, there are two great memories that stick out. The first, was when I took part in an airport crash emergency drill. This was a practice drill for the local emergency services, should there be a crash at our small airport. Needless to say, it involved a lot of fake blood, ambulances trips and rescue/fire crews.

The other memory that sticks out was taking part in welcoming Dame Marie Roslyn Bashir, Governor of New South Wales, back to the area where she was born. We practiced the drill marching and flag bearing for a good couple of weeks in preparation for that. We also participated in other annual events, such as ANZAC Day marches.

I stayed in the air league for several years and I learned a lot. At one point I could look at a plane, and name it’s brand, number of engines, and the potential distance it could fly. I loved flight. When I was about nine or ten, I was given the opportunity to take the controls of a crop duster for a small amount of time. That was an amazing feeling. Controlling an actual plane, as it flew through the air.

By this point in this story, I must admit that I am rambling a bit.

At eleven or twelve years of age, I quit the Australian Air League. At the time, I told my supervisors that it was because I wanted to go pursue graphic design (this would later become my software engineering career). However, that wasn't the full reason. I never really spoke to anyone about why I quit something that I loved, so suddenly.

The events that saw me quit are not representative of the Australian Air League, but more of the people in my local area that it attracted. Being in the Australian Air League was a good stepping stone for a lot of people to getting into the Australian Air Force.

About a year before I quit, I witnessed something truly horrific.

This horrific story starts with me waking up early one morning, and sneaking out into the family room of our house. Sitting on our bean-bag, with some headphones on so I wouldn’t wake my parents, I turned on the TV to watch cartoons and kids shows. I still remember turning on the TV, expecting to see cartoons, and instead saw something that I couldn’t quite comprehend. What had I tuned in to? Live coverage of the September 11 attacks in New York. Yes, I woke up as a kid, turned on the TV and saw that. Tearing off my headphones, I ran to my parents room, and woke them up:

Mum! Dad! Some aeroplanes have just crashed into these buildings in New York!

It was on every TV channel. I can remember seeing that footage of the towers falling for days on end, like some sort of never ending nightmare.

Fast forward a year or two, to near the time I quit the air league. At eleven years old, I was probably the youngest on the squad. Most of the squad were guys between the ages of fourteen and eighteen. The Iraq war was just starting, and we had already invaded Afghanistan.

Aside: A lot of my early teens I do not remember clearly. Later I came to learn of an automatic response from the brain to shock which meant blacking out large sections of memory. There’s stuff I wish I could remember, but honestly cannot.

I quit the Australian Air League because I felt I could not any longer be a part of it. Why? Because of something that will always stick in my head.

There were a group of guys that wanted to join the Junior Cadets (early ranks of the Air Force). I didn’t understand why they’d want to do that, but they did. I would rather fly commercial flights, such as the Boeing 777, which was brand new at the time.

I recall asking someone why they wanted to join the junior cadets. The response I received truly scares me, even to this day. At the same time, it makes me understand why we have war and unhappiness. Their response was:

“Because I want to go kill some paki bastards.”

I was so mortified at this response, how was it at all acceptable in our multicultural society to think like this? Combined with this comment, were the images of violence displayed on the nightly news. I had to quit. I told people I was going on to learn graphic design, but the true reason I quit was because I couldn’t stand the senseless violence and racism from some members of my squad.

In my early teens, I‘d seen so much violence and hatred that by the time of the London Bombings, I didn’t feel a thing. I couldn't feel anything. Violence became just part of the world I knew. This is as a middle-class white male Australian. I wasn’t in a war zone. I wasn’t anywhere near the attacks that had taken place.

As I grew up further, I began to learn that anger, and when exerted as violence, had no place in this world. Whenever I got in a fist fight (always provoked by bullying), I realised that what I'd done was senseless anger. It didn't change anything, and it was wrong.

Now, I can't stand violence. I don't watch or read much of the news. I dislike politics. I want to live in a peaceful world. The violence and anger I see in the world are not a solution.

Violence is never the answer.

This is something I learnt as an early teen. So, when I question the state of our world, I truly don't understand it.

Now, here we are, the year is 2014. The population of the earth is 7 Billion. There are 196 recognised countries. The world is now more connected than ever before. We’re making advances in science, medicine, and technology at an amazing pace.

However, at the same time, there are currently four major conflicts or wars taking place. My twitter stream is full of images and tweets from Israel and Gaza. I’ve seen news coverage of the events taking place in Gaza/Israel, Ukraine, as well as the continuous fighting in Iraq.

I’ve also been reading articles like that letter by Brian Eno, which includes anecdotes such as the following:

Today I saw a picture of a weeping Palestinian man holding a plastic carrier bag of meat. It was his son.

All of these wars seem to stem from hatred between two groups of people. I couldn’t ever claim to know a lot about any of the ongoing conflicts, other than what I hear on the news, or discuss with friends. However, what I do know, is that violence is never the correct answer.

Many thanks to Seyi, Filip, Jeremy and Hannah for providing feedback, reviewing, or correcting the language of this piece. The image used in the header is from the Cushing Library collection, their licensing is ambiguous, so, if they have problems, they can let me know.