DEAL WITH IT!

This is a fantastic piece that I just had to repost...I shall make note of my favorite Parts.

Blaring bugle at Fairchild draws neighbor ire

The Associated Press
Posted : Friday Aug 1, 2008 13:03:25 EDT

AIRWAY HEIGHTS, Wash. — A Fairchild Air Force Base commander’s order to pump up the volume on bugle calls and the national anthem played over the base public address system has some neighbors complaining of being jolted awake and conversations being drowned out.

“A few weeks ago, it got extremely loud,” said Lisa Long, who lives a quarter-mile from the base west of Spokane. “So bad you couldn’t talk on a cell phone. You couldn’t talk to somebody standing next to you.”

Fairchild officials, concerned about slack decorum, a month ago turned up the speaker volume of the recorded music that plays during reveille, retreat and “Taps” at 7:30 a.m., 4:30 p.m. and 9 p.m.

The speakers are inside the base’s fences, but that doesn’t confine the sound.

Long, a former Air Force wife who has a large U.S. flag on her barn, says she’s not anti-military and has learned to live with the roar of jets and even the occasional 2 a.m. rifle practice. But the loud music is beyond the call of duty.

“It interrupts nap time, and it’s irritating,” she said. ***WTF!!! You're an adult***

“We called the base and asked them to turn it down,” Long said. “An operator told me to buy a set of earplugs.” ***LOL***

Long’s friend, Rita Lebsock, described reveille as “an alarm clock you don’t want.”

“I’m patriotic and support our troops and everything, but I don’t think it’s right for them to play it that loud,” Lebsock said.

In April, Col. Roger Watkins, then the 92nd Air Refueling Wing’s acting commander, wrote on the Fairchild Web site of the lack of adherence to “military tradition, customs and courtesies” on base.

Watkins said he was running on base when retreat sounded. The brief bugle piece is followed by “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

“It blew me away when the bugle sounded and cars continued to drive past me while I was standing at attention,” Watkins wrote. “When the first note of the National Anthem is played, military members in uniform will stop, face the flag or music and render the appropriate salute until the last note is played.”

The Chief’s Council, a group of senior enlisted leaders at Fairchild, then recommended turning up the volume.

The council was “concerned that the music could not be heard very well on base proper,” said base spokesman Lt. Tristan Hinderliter. The music was turned down a few days ago in response to Long’s complaint, he said.

“We take these noise complaints seriously,” Hinderliter said.

Long said Wednesday she had noticed a decline in volume — “Taps last night was beautiful” — but the 4:30 p.m. retreat broadcast is still loud enough to hear inside her home with the windows closed. Though she is spared reveille because of an early-morning job, she can’t avoid retreat, which comes during nap time.

“It sounds like somebody setting a needle on a record, and you can actually hear the scratching,” she said.