| Susan Page: Victims deserve compassion 04/13/2001 By Susan Page The headline read, "Harrier crash kills two Marines." It was a brief report on a Harrier jet crash at the Marine Corps Air Station at Cherry Point, N.C. A Marine spokesperson provided scant details, and the story ended with the standard line: "Names [are being] withheld until notification of next of kin."
Twenty years ago, on Jan. 19, 1981, I was the "next of kin" to be notified, and it was my husband whose name was "withheld" after his Harrier jet crashed at Cherry Point, N.C. I know that 20 years is a long time. But even though you get on with it, you never quite get over it, and memories come flooding back with certain reminders, like headlines.
Thirty Marines have died in aviation accidents in the past year – an extraordinarily high number – and Marine Corps aviation has come under fire since the highly publicized V-22 Osprey crash last April that killed 19 Marines and another Osprey crash in December that killed four more Marines. Investigations are under way and rightly so.
Enter Mike Wallace of CBS' 60 Minutes. Obviously born missing a sensitivity gene, Mr. Wallace aggressively tried to interview the widow of one of the pilots right after the crash. I tried to imagine how even the most hard-core reporter could be so witless. From my own experience, I can tell you it would be as stupid as interviewing a man who had just had his arm cut off by a chain saw. "How does it feel without that arm?"
What might I have said to Mr. Wallace in those early horrific moments of shock?
That I hadn't wanted him to fly the Harrier. It was nicknamed the "Widow Maker," for God's sake.
That, yes, he knew that 43 of the original 110 jump jets the Marine Corps had bought in 1970 had crashed.
That, sure, I was mad at the Marine Corps and the Harrier and my husband and the commanding general and even the priest, and if the pope had walked in, I would have been mad at him, too.
That I didn't know what I was going to say to my 10- and 6-year old children and my husband's mother – oh God, his mother!
That I couldn't breathe.
That my husband had flown jets for 24 years and wasn't supposed to crash because he had "the right stuff."
That I am too young to be a widow and that my kids need a father.
That I would sue the president if it would bring my husband back.
That Harriers suck.
It might have made juicy copy – all that raw emotion – but it wouldn't have been fair or true. The fact is that all wives of military pilots are aware of the risks their husbands take every time they fly. It always is there just under the surface, but most wives choose not to dwell on it. They are aware that having their greatest fear happen is a harsh reality of military flying, a statistical possibility given the complexity of modern aircraft.
In six months or a year, I would have been able to sit down with Mr. Wallace and express myself rationally. My husband took an oath to take orders from the commander in chief, not me. He loved his job of helping to defend his country. He was born with a "stick" in his hands, destined to soar above the clouds. The Marine Corps was his love, and I loved it, too.
But those aren't the responses that drive up ratings for 60 Minutes, right, Mike? Well, go ahead, investigate and report; it is important. But don't write the script before you have the facts, and don't fill in the blanks of your preconceived story with the irrational words of a heartbroken widow.
Certain boundaries of decency and compassion should be a rule of the media, whether covering a military plane crash, a workplace shooting or any other sudden tragedy.
Susan Page, originally from San Angelo, was Miss Texas in 1966 and a Miss America semifinalist. She now lives in Honolulu.
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