Editor,

This letter is in response to those who want the Navy to close the Outlying Field at Coupeville.

Sometimes we lose our perspective about issues. For example, I choose to live adjacent to a golf course on South Whidbey. As a result, golf balls hit my house and I sometimes have to endure summertime traffic congestion and long ferry lines. But I don’t expect the golf course to close, or the ferry system to shut down because of my decision to live here. I knew about both of those issues when I moved here. It isn’t perfect, but I love living here.

I also play golf at the Gallery Golf Course at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island occasionally. Often aircraft are doing touch-and-gos at Ault Field and the course is right under the flight pattern, so it gets a little noisy. But the eagles and other animals seem to pay no attention to the noise or the planes. So apparently it isn’t about the natural environment.

The A-6A aircraft with its noisy engines started operating at OLF in the mid-1960s. I would bet not one in five people can tell the difference between the sound of an old A-6A and the new EA-18 in a blindfold test. So it probably isn’t about the noise either.

As an older person myself, I am willing to take the risk of being politically incorrect in saying that maybe it is about a bunch of Navy-hating older people who don’t need jobs who want the Navy to leave the island because of their lack of good judgment in moving to a place that isn’t perfect by their definition. I hope that it isn’t. But if it is, maybe some reexamination of perspective would help. Remember, there are a lot of people who would dearly love to live where you are living. And because of the military, you have the freedom to move to some place where you can find your perfection.

STAN WALKER

Freeland