Darn Military anyways

After much snooping investigative reporting, I discovered that the convoy that flew over Smithers last week was in fact a military one. The large aircraft in the middle was a fuel tanker, and the escorts were military jets of some sort (F-15's or F-16's? I don't have a clue). Sadly, no Bush or Cheney in the Bulkley Valley this time. The planes were on their way to Alaska, and the reports were that a large chopper was to be following them soon. My friends who work at Central Mountain Air sources on the inside told me that the helicopter would be landing in Smithers for a short time on Sunday, then departing again for Alaska.

So a friend and I went down to the Central Mountain Air hanger and snooped around did a bit more investigating. Unfortunately, the chopper did not end up landing in Smithers (big surprise there). But I found out that while the military escort flew overheard last week, it jammed all the cell phone signals for the better part of the day.

I wondered why my cell phone didn't work, and thought maybe it had something to do with the Telus labour dispute. Guess not.

Can the U.S. military really just do that sort of thing? I suppose it makes sense, because you wouldn't want potentially classified material being picked up by someone's cell phone. But doesn't it seem a little overboard that they would crush the whole network? Part of my work includes emergency restoration from water and fire damage. Pretty important stuff, especially if it is you who just had the flood in your basement. But what about doctors? Yeesh... I'd had to be that guy who needs his appendix removed or his broken leg set in place and has to wait a day because no one can get a hold of the on-call doctor.

Hopefully none of that actually happened.