Abby Paull ’28
Staff Writer
It’s a bird! No, it’s a plane! Well… almost. It’s actually a C - 5M Galaxy. Cool, but what is it doing flying over Mount Holyoke College? This giant plane belongs to the Air Force base that is located eight miles away from campus. Chicopee is known for its fire thrifting, good food, and interesting shops, but it’s also known for having the Westover Air Force base. This short distance makes it an easy drive for any government official to drive onto our campus. I’m not trying to fearmonger, but with the growing military presence in our country, we need to be mindful of what surrounds this campus. If we don’t do something, what will Mount Holyoke’s community legacy be? We can laugh and say that we’re “woke,” but are we? Can we call ourselves “changemakers” if we don’t speak up?
Lockheed Martin created the C-5m galaxy
“The C-5 Galaxy can carry more cargo farther distances than any other aircraft,” the official Lockheed Martin website states. And, oh boy, it sure does carry some cargo. No, it’s not to the United States; it’s going straight to Israel, according to a zine found around Willits Library authored by the Hidden Forces Project. Currently the U.S. and its trading partners are in support of Israel.
Whatever you may think about this, you’re sadly not the U.S. government and you don’t have control over taxpayer dollars. I discovered what the C-5 Galaxy was through this zine that has been circulating in LITS and the reading room. It takes on the question many of us have been asking: “What’s up with all that noise” on campus? As it turns out, the noise pollution we have been facing is directly caused by the Westover Air Force base and these C-5 Galaxies flying over our campus. The zine then goes into detail describing the environmental and political negatives of the aircraft flying over our campus. Any aircraft will cause air pollution, and the U.S. has historically not been good at avoiding pollution in aviation.
The United States is currently a major jet fuel user, more than one country should possibly be, and the U.S. military is a leading cause for this. Should we care that our country is poisoning our air in order to give foreign aid? For political reasons, many are concerned that this aircraft has been sending goods to Israel due to its occupation and genocide of Palestinians. Whatever you may think, politically or economically, this military might near the campus should be a cause of concern.
What does this revelation do to the Mount Holyoke Community legacy?
We call ourselves the “changemakers” and “innovators,” but are we? Have we become passive viewers like everyone else? What will we say to our children in future generations to come? What did we do to try and stop it? If we do not care even a little about a military base that goes deeply against many of our beliefs right next door, what do we care about?
This existential question reminded me of a conversation I had at the start of the semester, when I went to visit Visiting Instructor of Politics Ana Abraham. We had a lovely chat about the current political and economic states of the world right now. But she asked me a question that fumbled me: “We have Maduro [the former dictatorial president of Venezuela] in a U.S. prison, yet nobody seems to be reporting it; why don’t we care?”
I thought about it for a moment and then told her what I told many of my friends: “Girl, who cares?” But seriously, who actually cares anymore?
I ask the question to the general community, why don’t we care? I get that in the 21st century, we tend to focus more on ourselves, but we have to do something. We can’t be known as people who sit in their ivory towers trying to solve world problems for places they may never see. We have to think about our legacy coming out of the 2020s. We can assume as a viewer that Donald Trump is making all of these changes to America's national interest or ‘legacy.’ Mount Holyoke cares a lot about its legacy; if you take a walk around campus, you can see the school showing off their high achieving alums.
What will history have to say about us? That we posted Instagram infographics? What impact does that seriously have on change? I propose a call to action where we actually care. Being a politics major, the same trend seems to repeat itself over history, and people are stronger in numbers. If we use our phones to build groups that can communicate and actually see their ideas out to an end, we might see a future where we can make positive change for Massachusetts and the greater area: A future where C-5m Galaxies are not soaring above campus. If you gain one thing from this article, start discussing with your peers, “What America do I actually want to live in? Am I okay with my life getting more expensive? My Thirsty Mind matchas getting more expensive? Or myJellycats rising in price?”
You have to ask yourself if you want to get out of this mess, and if so, how.
Maeve McCorry ’28 contributed fact-checking.