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From: Ed_Greenberg@3mail.3com.com
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: NorTel Gets US Military Order
Message-ID: <16430@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 26 Jan 91 08:56:00 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 68, Message 2 of 11


Steve Mitchell <steve@caticsuf.csufresno.edu> writes:

> I find it ironic that, in our humanitarian gesture towards the 
> people of the Arabian Peninsula, the first casualties in the 
> conflict may have been civilian professionals like you and I.  The 
> contradictions in the philosophies of modern warfare, in terms of 
> their goals and their means, abound.

You know, there isn't much humanitarian about a war.  It is sobering,
however, to realize that the telephone operators are as much at risk
as the soldiers.

As a technical person, you may too live near "ground zero."  I live
and work within ten miles of Moffett Naval Air Station -- in the heard
of Silicon Valley.  I grew up going to school across the street from
Grumman Aerospace in Bethpage, New York.  If "the big one comes" and
thank the deity that's less likely these days, I have no illusions
about whether I live in a target area.

On the other hand, if it is suggested that we not take out the
telephone exchange because there are civilian technicians working
there, then we have bowed to the Human Shield concept and our entire
operation is now held hostage.


[Moderator's Note: Telephone employees have been in the middle of
these things before and simply tried to carry on the best they could.
There have been local and national emergencies which greatly taxed the
ability of telecom people to get the job done ... yet they stuck with
it. Historical trivia: In the middle 1960's, protestors of the war in
southeast Asia barricaded the Administration Building at the
University of Chicago and forced the building to be closed for two
days. The one exception was the telephone operators: they not only
were permitted to enter and leave the building, but as a matter of
their personal safety were escorted in and out by the protestors.  PAT]