A Foreigner’s Perspective on San Francisco’s Fleet Week
By: Bim-Ray Yau
O'er azure skies
And emerald plains
Where freedom and justice prevail
With courage and strength
We'll fight to the end
For liberty in our land.
The cluttered sound of fighter pilots singing over the radio, celebrating their hard-earned victory over a fleet thought to be invincible, rings through the memories of everyone who played Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies. The moment left me in awe at the triumph of piloting skill and human engineering. Ever since I played through Shattered Skies, my love for aviation, etched into my mind by the game, persisted. Yet before attending Fleet Week in 2021, this was the closest I had come to experiencing a military parade.
To me, military celebrations are less about proclaiming nationalistic pride than about highlighting the amazing physical and engineering feats humans can achieve. Fleet Week SF’s star performers, the U.S. Navy Blue Angels, exemplify this with their acrobatic stunts, painting the blue skies over the San Francisco Bay with cloud-white contrails. Attendance figures seem to show that the American public agrees: even with an ongoing pandemic, around 800,000 people attended Fleet Week 2021.
Yet while browsing online for the best location to view Fleet Week’s signature air show, I came across this opinion article on SFGate, the San Francisco Chronicle’s sister publication. The author expressed his disgust at Fleet Week, seeing the event as a colossal waste of resources, an unnecessary glorification of an American military willing to partake in callous acts of aggression abroad.
I know America is no saint. I know America faces the daunting task of trying to bridge ever-deepening social divisions. I know America stands at a crucial point of self-reflection on its history. But the fury and loathing that came from the article still surprised me.
Within Fleet Week’s vast array of exhibitions stood potential examples of the waste mentioned in the SFGate article. The Navy put the USS Michael Monsoor, a Zumwalt-class stealth destroyer, as the star of their naval display. The USS Micheal Monsoor represents the best and worst about the U.S. military: equipped with cutting-edge technology and unparalleled combat ability, but also the product of disastrous cost-overruns and equipped with no usable ammunition. The ship epitomizes the wasted potential and myriad of mistakes made by the military.
Yet once I actually saw the ship, all thoughts of its failures faded. I stood in awe of the engineering marvel that was the tumblehome-shaped hull, an imposing presence that loomed over the Embarcadero. A 2.5 hour-long line waiting to tour the Michael Monsoor seemed to show that much of the audience also forgot about the Zumwalt-class’s faults in sheer amazement.
Fleet Week, of course, is more than just a static display of military equipment. The event also provided an opportunity for the Bay Area’s denizens to interact with service members face-to-face. With the vitriol that can surround the U.S. military’s conduct at times, I expected at least some heckling and protests against what was a flaunt of military propaganda. But everywhere I went, I witnessed friendly banter, civil respect, and a festive mood. The respect shown to military servicemen unfolded in plain sight, exuding civility instead of uneasy political tension. Naval officers, enlisted sailors, and civilians alike enjoyed the celebrations around them. If any of them possessed disdain for one another, whether from socioeconomic or political fault lines, they did not exhibit them. They put aside differences to celebrate human achievement, materialized in the form of stunning aerial displays and cutting-edge naval technology. Even though I am not American, I could sense the unity that Americans take pride in when celebrating their country’s achievements, even in the face of very real divisions.
Climbing up the hill overlooking Fort Mason to grab a spot for watching the Blue Angels, I too encountered American hospitality and kindness. Standing next to an elderly couple, they struck up a conversation with me. We discussed in earnest the otherworldly aerial sweeps and intricate coordination of the Super Hornets flown by Blue Angels pilots with exceptional talent. Even as a complete stranger, a student hailing from an island thousands of miles away, I was still someone whom they were perfectly willing to converse with for half an hour. Back home in Taiwan, in contrast, strangers would treat each other with silence. In this case, the military display was not some macho demonstration. Instead, it brought out what I believed to represent the best America can be: a welcoming society able to commemorate human achievement in earnest, where the military and civilians stand hand-in-hand with respect for each other instead of being at each other’s throats. For all the criticism of the expenses spent to make Fleet Week possible, I would much rather America’s military spend its funds on a parade promoting national unity during peacetime than on wars abroad.
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