Stop F-35 Bomber Training During Pandemic: DSA City Councilor and Progressive Majority Win City Council Resolution

In response to the Covid-19 pandemic crisis, the Burlington City Council passed a resolution calling for a halt to Vermont Air Guard F-35 bomber practice flights. Perri Freeman, Progressive Party City Councilor and Champlain Valley DSA member, introduced the resolution in response to ramped up flight training of the newly deployed F-35s from the city’s airport. The airport is in the densely populated area. The expanded flights are despite the statewide stay at home order and prohibition of all but essential services.  The resolution passed 11-1  (most Democrats were pressured into supporting it) and called on the Vermont Governor and Congressional delegation to do everything in their power to suspend the flights due to the intense, harmful noise.

The resolution developed out of a community petition calling on the Governor to halt F-35 flights and to redirect Air Guard’s resources to needed pandemic response.  Estimates put the annual operational cost of Vermont Air Guard practice flights at well over $100 million/year. At the time of this article, 1,600 people had signed the petition. 

Republican Governor Scott, along with the Democratic Party-aligned Congressional delegation of Senators Sanders and Leahy, and Representative Welch, have all unconditionally supported the F-35 bomber basing in Burlington.  This is despite majority opposition in several towns near the airport, including Burlington. According the Air Force’s Environmental Impact Statement, the extreme noise of the F-35 poses both immediate and long-term health hazards to nearly 10,000 people. This is in the communities designated “not suitable for residential use” because of the extreme F-35 noise. Many thousands more are impacted outside this super-intense zone.

The State and Congressional supporters of the F-35 cite the mission of the F-35 as reason to ignore the damage to public health and the waste of resources. But the only military use of the F-35 is high altitude bombing.  The Vermont Air Guard flew the predecessor to the F-35, the similar F-16 bomber, in missions to the Middle East and Iraq, participating in the massive killing, war crimes, and regional destabilization carried out by the U.S. invading forces. Fewer people would have a problem with the boondoggle F-35, the most expensive weapon in history, if it wasn’t a weapon of mass destruction in the service of U.S. empire.

In the State Legislature, Progressive Party Representatives and DSA members Colburn and Brian Cina from Burlington backed the resolution and wrote in a letter to the Governor:

“Our constituents are working hard to comply with the "Stay Safe, Stay Home" order by social distancing, sheltering in place, and working from home. We have heard many instances of F-35 planes disrupting sleep, causing ear aches and headaches, interrupting the ability to work at home, and reactivating past traumas and exacerbating mental health issues at a time when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and others have recognized the significant mental health impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak. One constituent shared that she runs to the basement when the planes fly overhead, because of how painful the disruption is. She wrote of her home country, "When I was growing up, the basement was where we went for a potential bombing during a war."

While the resolution is likely to be ignored by the Governor and Congressional delegation, who are firm in their commitments to the regional military industrial complex, it is part of an on-gong fight. As one community F-35 opponent, Jennifer Decker, told reporters, “Justice must surely include cancellation of the F-35 basing. It is a reasonable request to ground the planes during a pandemic as a prerequisite to removing them from a municipal civilian airport in a densely populated area.”