What with all the hoopla over the Washington football team and their racist name, “Redskins”, what aren’t these feel good social activists gunning for the military, so to speak?
For probably the last 50 years the Army has named every one of their helicopters after either an Indian tribe or an Indian chief. The only one not so named was the AH1 Cobra. And why? The Army worried about insulting the native American community by naming an aggressive, life-taking gunship after a tribe.
Here’s a list of at least what I can remember.
Uh-1 “Huey” Iroquois.
AH-64 Apache (guess we got past that aggressive life-taking gunship stigma)
CH47 Chinook
UH72 Lakota
AH56 Cheyenne
UH60 Blackhawk (named after the chief of the Sauk tribe)
UH58 Kiowa Warrior
OH6 Cayuse
RAH66 Comanche (canceled 2004 by SECDEF Rumsfeld–not being advanced enough)
Then there is the AGM/BGM 109 series Tomahawk missile.
Apart from sounding masculine and simply badass, these names never were attached to these weapons and flying platforms in order to be racist or to “rub their noses” in it for having been conquered. Yet, we will likely see the activists set their sights on the military once they believe it is safe to do so without bearing a public backlash for targeting the military.
The Pentagon should head them off at the pass, to coin a singularly western cliché meant to denigrate Indians. They should name all current and future weapons platforms after flowers.
UH1 Hydrangea
AH64 Aster
CH47 Carnation
UH72 Lilly
AH56 Chrysanthemum
UH60 Begonia
OH58 Kingcup
OH6 Crocus
RAH Calendula
We should be safe here–until the botanists get upset we’ve attached names of their plant studies to weapons of war. We might be better off just doing away with the helicopters and missiles entirely. We don’t want to offend anyone anymore than we want to hurt them.
Oh and the 2nd Infantry Division at Fort Lewis? You’re going to have to be reflagged as another unit. That “Mutual of Omaha” looking patch with the Indian head at the center has to go. Maybe we just disband the unit entirely and save some more of the defense budget and redirect it towards hiring some medicine men for all the illegals streaming north from Mexico.
Did I just say that?