"Every man thinks more meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea," said Samuel Johnson. "Or not having been an airman," he might have added, had the ludicrous possibility of flight occurred to him. For to have freely served in the uniform of your country simply out of a desire to serve is the quintessence of that largely unsung virtue, "patriotism". I had the profoundly uncomfortable experience of being in the company of hundreds of unassuming patriots at Baldonnel the other day, writes Kevin Myers
They probably haven't got a clue what I'm talking about, so if any of them are with me here, it goes like this. They have sworn fealty to the Republic of Ireland. They have taken the ancient oath of brother-in-blood, one of the most psychologically transforming deeds possible. They have promised to serve their country, and if necessary lay down their lives in the line of duty.
The mental gulf between the oath-takers and the non-oath-takers is as wide as that between fire and flood. OTs might not feel superior to NOTs - but we NOTs definitely feel inferior to them.
One proof of the immaturity of our sense of statehood is how little effort or energy we traditionally put into defence, or how little respect we give our Defence Forces. Being the Minister for Defence in this Republic has been rather like being Master of the Broom Cupboard, squatting under the stairs by the light of a dusty, 40-watt bulb, with a couple of old brushes, a dustpan, some rusting tins of polish, an old smelly soldier, and maybe a dead mouse or two for company.
This decades-long neglect was scandalous; and it says all the more about the quality and sense of duty of the people who joined the Defence Forces that they so uncomplainingly endured life in the broom cupboard, especially since its master was usually chosen for his sleveenery and his intellectual mediocrity.
There was, happily, an exception to this general rule: David Andrews. Somehow or other he got the Defence portfolio: letters wrongly delivered, probably. And he halted the slide in Air Corps morale by giving it its own uniform and modern equipment. The resulting transformation has been astounding. Air Corps personnel today are self-confident and proud, sure in the knowledge that, though they belong to a small organisation, they can finally match like with like.
Now I happen to have the navigational sense of a bat with its ears sawn off, so when I was given instructions to find the Air Corps museum at Baldonnel, where Spitfire veterans were gathering for a talk, I charged off in the wrong direction. I wandered into a hangar - and there before me was an entire flight of Royal Air Force Tucano trainers. I had chanced on to one of the lesser known secrets of the Defence Forces: exchange trips between ourselves and the British go on the whole time. Last year, entirely unnoticed, and unpublicised lest the dreary backwoodsmen of bigotry come howling yet again from their tribal lair, a flight of Air Corps PC-9s participated in the 65th anniversary commemorations of the Battle of Britain at RAF Leuchars. And now the RAF were here to exchange flying skills with the Air Corps. Perhaps for the first time ever, there is absolutely no major technological gap between their training regimes.
The next day, three young cadets - Alan Bray from Cabra in Dublin, Paul Grennan from Ballyshannon and Michael Noonan from Tipperary town - were given their wings in a simple, moving ceremony in the main hangar. That afternoon, they received their presidential commissions and their swords in a ceremony that could have taken place at Sandhurst. Overshadowing their rightful pride was the grief over the death of a fourth cadet, Thomas O'Grady of Dungarvan, in a car crash in January.
Cabra, Ballyshannon, Tipperary, Dungarvan: that says it all. The Air Corps is class-blind. For these are brilliant boys from modest backgrounds who have passed the most rigorous international standards to fly in the Corps and to serve their country. God, I envy them. The greatest day in their lives was made all the more memorable by the superb performance of the Army Number One Band, under the sublime baton of Mark Armstrong.
Then Air Corps and RAF airmen gathered to watch a spectacular air display by the ex-Air Corps Spitfire. Our chaps looked far smarter. Then to lunch hosted by the Air Corps GOC, Brigadier-General Ralph James, Air Corps and RAF types mixing freely.
With four airlines, a Coast Guard and the Air Corps, we need many more pilots than we're producing. Parents: would you not want your teenage sons and daughters to serve their country in the uniform of the Air Corps? Patriotism leads to other avenues: Geoff White, for example, the Cityjet boss, is a former Air Corps pilot, and it was he who arranged the Spitfire visit.
He had personally to bore a tunnel through seven kinds of meteorological filth stretching from the Dogger Bank to Shannon to enable the Spitfire to get here from Cambridgeshire. He then bribed the weather gods to make it impossible for the Spit to return to England, by sacrificing the last virgins in Ireland over the age of 16 at Tara. Its pilot had to fly back to Britain via airline. By the time he returns to collect his Spitfire at Baldonnel, Geoff will probably have clamped it, and conveniently lost the key.
From fighter-pilot to virgin-burner and Spitfire-clamper. The career options the Air Corps opens for one.