Nicely put, Witty, but why the shades? You aren't exactly saying something likely to incite people.
Quite honestly, I wasn’t sure how everyone would react to this post. Especially since at the time of the incident; 2 or 3 people not only sympathized with the guy but even agreed with him, all to my dismay.
What happened was this: I was climbing enroute to a furball roughly half a sector away when I saw tracers pass by my canopy. I wasn’t paying attention so an enemy managed to sneak up behind me. It was no big deal, especially considering that his aim was so horrible that he didn’t hit me. Sensing that this guy wasn’t a threat, I took my time slowly doing a split-S and that was when I noticed there were a handful of enemies in the area, not just one. So I started heading back to base to while trying to decide on the best course of action.
I then noticed a Mossie at about the same altitude as me, off my right wing, headed straight for me. I banked right to meet the Mossie head-on but maneuvered to avoid being shot in the face. As I start to turn around to follow the Mossie I notice a much higher 190 in the same direction as where the Mossie had come from. I decided to forgo chasing the Mossie to instead deal with the 190 who seemed to pose a much greater and more imminent threat.
Seconds later I hear some guy over the range channel say something along the lines of: “I’m not flying around here anymore…no one gives any ‘check sixes’.” Someone else apologetically announces how he was just about to give a ‘check six’, that in fact he even had his finger on the button but just couldn’t press it in time. Then it got to the point where the first guy loses his temper and says something like: I’m not mad at any of you guys, I’m just ticked at the guy who was right friggin behind him…Whitten!”
That completely caught me off guard; at first I didn’t even know what he was talking about. But then I put two and two together and figured out that the Mossie who had just passed me was the same Mossie who this guy was complaining attacked him.
Since he was making such a big deal about not receiving a ‘check six’, it’s obvious that he didn’t even see the Mossie coming. But somehow he was able to know that I was chasing the Mossie at the time of the attack? If he knew I was chasing the Mossie, wouldn’t he realize the Mossie was there in the first place? The answer is simply no; he did not see the Mossie nor did he see me chasing the Mossie. He just simply used this as an excuse to take out all his rage on someone else.
Even if I was chasing the Mossie, or was simply aware that the Mossie was going to attack this guy; yeah, it would have been rude not to give a ‘check six’ (provided that I had the opportunity to do so) but regardless, there is absolutely no call for acting the way this guy did. And I’m just as disappointed at the countrymen who verbally agreed with this guy while neither they themselves witnessed the attack. So my whole point to you is, don’t harass or humiliate anyone for any reason; after all this is just a game.
