Okay, okay, the whole Chinese spy balloon thing was a lot of fun. It should also — when combined with near daily ChiCom provocations — jolt us out of our national complacency with regard to the Chinese Communist Party’s ill will toward us and its nefarious actions on the high seas, in the skies, and in the realm of cyberspace.
But, as a professional military officer, I have a far more pressing and consequential question about this week’s just-concluded international incident:
Will the F-22 pilot who got the balloon kill off Myrtle Beach be buying beers for his whole squadron tonight, or will the squadron be buying him beers?
I don’t know enough about the Air Force or the internal culture of Raptor squadrons, but I have to think it’d be the former. You get the kill, you buy the beers — especially if it was only a silly balloon.