Shittyhawk

can appreciate how violated we feel having your military presence in our country. Even though you are supposed allies we trust you as far as we could throw an air-craft carrier. You have turned on us before. Really appreciate this poem. An elegant truth. cheers, Jess

i am an american, and i am patriotic and all that crap, but i do feel that we try to control the world, and we say its for overall peace, but hey, we cause more harm than good, it happens a.m.painter

i love your writing fm!

But who am I to talk. Craig

I can't imagine how huge it must have looked in the harbour, or the feeling of menace. But your poem is I think maybe the best one of yours that I have read. I find it tight and uncompromising, really excellant. Love. Craig

Vessel has been stationed in San Diego a couple of times; although I haven't verified it, I think it's STILL stationed here, formally. When it's moored here, I don't notice it much. I'm five miles away and on the other side of a mesa, so if I want to be annoyed, I have to make a special effort. Aircraft carriers in San Diego Harbor are . . . ubiquitous. We even keep a 'pet aircraft carrier'--USS MIdway--afloat for use as a museum and tourist trap. The tours are conducted by ancient sailors who are scandalously still alive, and still pleased with their accomplishments in WWII. About stationing CVN's in foreign ports, particularly yours. Talk to the P. M. If you can convince him to tell the president to park his navy elsewhere, I believe the Kittyhawk would shortly be ordered to up anchor and sail away. And isn't it wonderful that foreign policy is made just that way? Sadly, the pacific are hardly ever the makers of foreign policy. It's the surlier types--i.e., those idiots elected most recently, and those jackasses elected before them. Or it's tyrants. Because your poem is so very highly effective in conveying your outrage, I do in some degree feel how deeply the presence in your home of armed outlanders must offend you who are opposed to arms, force, and all the other happy hobbies of warriors. There is much in the business of war that wounds the eye, stings the nose, or otherwise disgusts. I stay home on Veterans' Day, and wait until it passes. I don't like having my nose rubbed in error. But I had a point to make: yes, you are outraged; tell your government so--and I assure you, I will show support at this end. Kittyhawk can get anywhere it's needed, eventually. And, as I said, the boat doesn't upset my stomach.