Rich DeColibus to Mary Woolford: Shame on us if we fail to try

From Rich DeColibus, November 4, 2008
Subject: Your Frustration

Hello Mary,

We've never met and probably never will, but I did see your email and your frustration is obvious. Let me tell you a story of unsurpassing irrelevancy.

Back in early World War II, the US Navy had torpedo bombers whose main job was to fly straight at enemy ships, drop the torpedo in the right place aimed in the right direction, and then clear out. The only problem with this theory was flying a low, slow torpedo bomber straight at Japanese ships which had accurate anti-aircraft fire and top-flight zero fighter pilots shooting down the torpedo bombers was not a lot of fun. In fact, in any given mission, for every ten pilots who went out, two came back. It is the closest thing to a sanctioned suicide mission the United States Military ever had.

One pilot who survived was asked by his daughter, "How could you possibly fly mission after mission knowing the odds were horribly against you." His response was simple. "A 20% chance of survival was better than no chance."

Our chance of encouraging the Retirement Board to change course and reflect at least distantly the wishes of its members is about the same as the torpedo bomber pilot's chances of survival. It doesn't mean you don't fly the mission. The shame on us isn't that we fail to have enough impact to change things at STRS, the shame would be if we failed to try.

What has happened has happened. The focus now is to ensure it doesn't happen again. At least that's where I am coming from.

Rich DeColibus