Uncle Sam Wants You! (To Be Vigilant)

July 26, 2005 -- -- The attacks on London this month, even though not involving airports, bring home a sobering reality: Public transportation of any kind is a prime target for two-legged vermin trying to kill as many innocent people as possible. While subways and train stations (principally on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States) are prime possible targets, there is no question that we gather in greater numbers at airports nationwide on a daily basis.

While we've made great strides in raising formidable barriers against any repeat of a 9/11-style invasion of commercial airliners, any part of any airport in which citizens can come and go -- especially those areas "outside security" -- remain vulnerable, and the main defense system is simply your eyes and ears and situational awareness. In other words, it's very much like the World War II posters saying, "Uncle Sam wants You!" This is a draft of necessity, and it involves all of us.

"SA." Situational awareness. It's a very descriptive phrase fighter pilots have long used in referring to the need to be actively aware of everything around them.

In the case of the occupant of a high-speed, single-seat fighter (such as an F-15 or F-16 or Navy Tomcat), maintaining SA in a combat situation can mean the difference between living and dying.

It means the pilot has to be using all available tools -- his or her own senses as well as electronic sensors such as radar -- to simultaneously "see" 360 degrees, know what threats there are, know the status of the aircraft in acute detail, and understand the dynamics of what is happening. That's a tall order for one carbon-based human being, but that's why today's fighter pilots are a rare and capable breed.

Maintaining SA is also a commandment for anyone outside of aviation engaged in a high-risk enterprise. Physicians and nurses, for example, are constantly challenged to understand the need for maintaining a macro as well as micro view of their surroundings, their patients and the dynamic realities of, for instance, an emergency room.

Even a woman walking to her car after work needs to maintain SA, tuning her senses -- not out of fear but out of good habit -- to be very aware of who and what is around her. Ever see a TV hero get in a car without at least glancing in the backseat, only to be attacked from that same backseat? There's a character who wasn't maintaining SA.