“The woman sitting in front of us was very upset and asked me how I could just sit there reading,” Katie Hayden said. “Bob’s been shot at. He’s been stabbed. He’s taken knives away. He knows how to handle those situations. I figured he would go up there and step on somebody’s neck, and that would be the end of it. I knew how that situation would end. I didn’t know how the book would end.”
From Blackfive, here’s some background:
Shortly before landing, Bob Hayden and a flight attendant had agreed on a signal: When she waved the plastic handcuffs, he would discreetly leave his seat and restrain an unruly passenger who had frightened some of the 150 people on board a Minneapolis-to-Boston flight Saturday night with erratic behavior.
Hayden, a 65-year-old former police commander, had enlisted a gray-haired gentleman sitting next to him to assist. The man turned out to be a former US Marine.
“I had looked around the plane for help, and all the younger guys had averted their eyes. [Emphasis mine- admin] When I asked the guy next to me if he was up to it, all he said was, ‘Retired captain. USMC.’ I said, ‘You’ll do,’ “Hayden recalled…
Read the whole thing. I love manly men and their calm, knowing wives!
Related: Affection for the Protector Lads and He-Men
WELCOME: Instapundit readers! While you’re here please look around! Today we’re also talking Illegal Immigration and my comments thread is full of people on both sides managing to actually, calmly discuss the issue with seriousness and civility! I’m so impressed, because I didn’t think it was possible! We’re also looking at what it means to be really “present” to another person and I’m recalling Abe Lincoln’s wise words on problems and solutions and enthrallment. Happy reading!
June 5th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
“One told Hayden the man had said, “Your lives are going to change today forever,” as he shouted and refused to take his seat before takeoff and at various times during the nearly three-hour flight.”
The guy’s causing an uproar *before takeoff*, and they took off with him aboard anyway?
June 5th, 2007 at 8:59 pm
[...] via Insty’s link to The Anchoress) Posted by Joshua Zader · Trackback URL · Link [...]
June 5th, 2007 at 10:16 pm
Seems to me all the young guys averting their eyes needed their necks stepped on. When did men become sheep?!
June 5th, 2007 at 11:13 pm
I had looked around the plane for help, and all the younger guys had averted their eyes.
ARGH! D%$N KIDS these days! What’s wrong with these people?
(I’ve turned into such a curmudgeon, and I’m only 40! Stories like this do not help!)
Great story, though, despite the presence of those lazy cowards.
June 6th, 2007 at 12:57 am
As a member of the obviously flawed younger-than-thirty generation, I should probably just leave this be. But, tonight I happened to have dinner with a friend, and because of him, I feel compelled to object to the tone taken in this post. My friend is also of this generation of “damn eye-averting lazy cowards”, and he served for four years in the Marines, saw combat in Iraq, and last spring resigned his commission having attained the rank of captain. He is now being activated to complete another tour of duty in Afghanistan. On behalf of him, and on behalf of all the many others of my generation who don’t avert there eyes, and finally on behalf of the many young’ns who have fallen in this war, I say that this posting is a abject trivialization. The older gentlemen who behaved bravely on this flight set a good example of leadership and performance under pressure for the members of the younger generation (who, admittedly, failed to act as we might have hoped)– bravo to them. But what example does all this hand-wringing of yours set?
June 6th, 2007 at 1:53 am
rp - As a member of the obviously flawed younger-than-thirty generation, I should probably just leave this be
That’s a good idea - otherwise you will get your neck stepped on.
June 6th, 2007 at 2:13 am
@ rp -
I wouldn’t place too much faith in your Marine friend’s reasoning. A Marine does not become a Captain by accident or by “going along, getting along.” The things your Marine friend told you were probably spoken by an honest-to-God patriot and a heavy hitter, no doubt. He toned it down so as not to offend his pacifist, cowardly, slightly effeminate friend.
Oh, and hand wringing? There’s none of that here. We’re here to celebrate a couple guys willing to kick ass and take names. The hand wringing is being done by you and your ilk who are abashed that abject surrender and subjudication didn’t win the day. And you can’t for the life of you figure out why.
June 6th, 2007 at 5:59 am
Oh, for crying out loud, please read the comments rules folks. I have no patience for commenters going after each other in my threads. If you don’t like someone’s comments there is no need to start calling names. Disagree but be civil, please, or I close the damn thread. Yes, I actually do enforce that.
And rp, I thought I’d characterize this story I’ve linked to as more humorous than “hand-wringing,” and cast no aspersions on “your generation” whatever that might be. I simply highlighted a line. I know many young men who would be happy to join these two in some neck-stepping…it simply seems that none of their ilk were on this particular flight.
June 6th, 2007 at 6:40 am
Granted, many of my generation are a bunch of pusses. However, there are still many that will take a stand when needed. Evidence for this can be found in the great number or folks returning for additional tours in Iraq and Afganistan. Hells bells, there are guys with limbs blown off heading back to fight again.
Many of my “ilk” are giving of themselves THIS VERY MOMENT to ensure our freedom to speak as we wish. Men that give their live or have their bodies shattered in order to protect us and our country are not cowards. Mr Shoosh may think them cowards, but I disagree.
With all due respect to the Anchoress… I do to take your implication. Please explain what other meaning we are to take away from this post so that I might understand.
Thank you
June 6th, 2007 at 7:01 am
I didn’t see the article as bashing the younger generation, either. Besides, it’s not talking about the younger-than-30 generation. I’d be willing to bet that the “younger guys” to whom Hayden is referring are in their late 30s through 50s. My dad does the same thing when he talks about the “young fella” (42) and the “nice girl” (37) down the street. He’s 72, so the “old guys” are in their 90s. And himself, on a achy-joint day.
Incidentally, I find that the younger crowd (20s and early 30s) will get involved even if it’s not their business. Or maybe that’s just because I live in a small town now.
June 6th, 2007 at 8:02 am
[...] BUT WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO when these guys get too old? [...]
June 6th, 2007 at 8:06 am
RP & #9 - you may take any meaning away from the post that you wish - I can’t control how you receive things - but to satisfy myself that you have had the gist of it correctly communicated to you, let me be very clear, so that if you’re still offended we can at least determine that it’s you’re choice:
1) Please observe the TITLE of the piece in the Boston Globe, which reads: Graying duo keep passenger in check.
You see, one of the points of the whole story was that it was the older guys, and not the younger, who were ready, willing and able to step on necks on that particular flight. If you don’t like that particular observation, you should perhaps take it up with both the Boston Globe and Mr. Hayden, but I can’t guarantee that they’ll be as nice to you as I am! They might think you’re wringing hands.
2) I am second to no one in my appreciation for the young men and women who serve our country in the armed forces, in fire departments and other emergency services; too many of them are in my family. You’re new to this site - please feel free to read my archives before assuming you know much about me.
As I said, I know many young men (and a couple of young women) who would have been happy to do some neck-stepping with Mr. Hayden - my own sons (ages 22 and 17) included; they simply weren’t on that flight. I think perhaps my own vision of these “younger guys” alluded to in the article was that they were more the folks in my own generation or slightly younger - late 30’s to early 50’s - and since that’s the time when most men are thinking “what about my kids if something happens to me” that may well be what was in their heads.
I don’t believe I cited any particular “generation” as being less than noble; I merely highlighted a line that brought emphasis to a headline. Perhaps it says something, though, that you’ve chosen to take such offense at something so indirect.
I’ve tried to teach my sons not too get too balled up over imagined or unintended insults, and to try to keep a sense of humor about things. I still think the story was funny.
June 6th, 2007 at 8:52 am
Accessorizing free society with luxuries like pacifism and metrosexuality only works if a) predators agree to play along or b) people like the men in this story exist to protect it. Since the former is quite unlikely, we’d better make more of the latter.
It isn’t a generational thing. Significant swaths of our culture see weakness as a virtue, treat success and achievement with suspicion, little different than mediocrity or failure, and equate sacrifice and harship with failure. And if the behavior of our so-called leadership classes are any indication, we’re becoming quite adept at rationalizing cowardice as well.
The dubious project of femimizing the West — by classifying boyish ramunctiousness as pathology to be mediated by drugs and therapy, or delegitimizing maleness with incessant ridicule and disapproval — will likely result in a society ripe for domination.
Rest assured, our enemies aren’t buying into such nonsense.
June 6th, 2007 at 9:57 am
[...] who subdued a pair of unruly passengers aboard a flight while their younger male fellow-passengers averted their eyes reminded me of the Michelle Malkin piece linked above, which was written in the aftermath of the [...]
June 6th, 2007 at 11:32 am
However thrilling it may have been, the irony of it is that, apparently, nobody attempted anything but a manly men caper of strongarming and restraint. Speaking as someone who routinely needs to calm down mental health clients in a tizzy, there is a very good chance that simply a few sharp confident words [either to the man or to his brother seated beside him] and a little bit of listening would have defused the whole situation.
But then how many passengers would have applauded that?
June 6th, 2007 at 11:57 am
Joseph, it’s also very true that if untrained people tried to talk to this fellow they might have made things appreciably worse. The strongarm tactic wasn’t simply for it’s own sake, it was for the sake of 150 passengers 30,000 feet in the air, dealing with something they could not predict. I wouldn’t judge these folks so harshly, particularly if I was on that flight.
June 6th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
“apparently, nobody attempted anything but a manly men caper of strongarming and restraint”
You must have missed the part about the man becoming agitated pre-flight, but being calm down enough to travel. And the part where the flight attendants put themselves between the person and the other passengers, but didn’t call for a “restraint” at that point.
Speaking as someone who has worked with young people who’ve injured themselves and others, it’s hard to tell if a stranger is truly calmed down or just having a moment before going into “meltdown” mode. Even if you know the person and have the help and experience of family members, caseworkers, doctors, etc., it isn’t an easy call to judge how someone will react. A couple of my favourite people have had awesome mornings, only to require restraint and a few days’ stay in a hospital by mid-afternoon. I have been stabbed and burned with a cigarette by people I thought were calm and reasonable.