Protect Our Children from F-35s

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courtesy Safe Skies Clean Water Wisconsin

media release: The Safe Skies Clean Water Coalition will sponsor a public forum this Wednesday evening where it will premiere a film the group has created about the negative impacts F-35 fighter jets are likely to have on infants and children living near the Truax airbase.

The event is scheduled for 7 pm on Wednesday, April 19, at the Sherman Avenue United Methodist Church, 3705 North Sherman Avenue in Madison.  

The film features interviews with a retired school teacher, a social worker, and Dr. Ann Behrmann, a local pediatrician and leader of Physicians for Social Responsibility. The brief documentary was produced by local filmmaker Gretta Wing-Miller.  

The coalition will also show an interview recorded on 4/15/23 with retired Air Force Colonel Rosanne Greco of South Burlington, Vermont. The Colonel led a long but unsuccessful campaign to prevent the F-35 jets from being based in the Burlington area. The Air National Guard base in South Burlington was the first in the nation to receive the controversial jets. Madison could be the second.  

“The thing that I found really most disturbing is the harm it [F-35] does to children, and especially infants, because children’s bodies are smaller, their internal organs cannot absorb this kind of vibration ... the effects on children are far more profound,” Greco says in the interview.  

The Safe Skies film captures testimony from Dr. Sam Russo, who was one of 33 citizens who spoke at a City Council meeting in September 2021 in Winooski, a small city that sits on the fringe of the airport and Guard base in South Burlington. “The last jet flew over I think this morning, so it’s been several hours and people are still worked up over that,” Russo recalled. “There’s actually a neurochemical basis for that and it causes permanent neuromodulation in kids, meaning that as they are repeatedly exposed to a stressor, they can have permanent changes to their nervous system that’s going to affect behavior and function down the road.

And over time that’s not going to change. So it’s not really a question if the F-35s are causing harm, it’s to what extent are the F-35s causing harm.”  

Madison Alder Marsha Rummel will moderate the public forum, which will also include comments from school teachers, school social workers and other members of the coalition.  

The Safe Skies coalition is calling on public officials to negotiate with the US Air Force for a new mission for the Madison ANG airbase that does not involve training of fighter jet pilots. Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers and US Senator Tammy Baldwin are the two Wisconsin officials who have the power to make that happen. Both have steadfastly avoided opportunities to meet with representatives of the coalition.  

On Sunday, March 26, Safe Skies Clean Water published a full-page ad in the Wisconsin State Journal calling on the Governor to negotiate a new mission for Truax. “It should be obvious, Governor Evers,” the ad said, “that acquiescing to the Air Force’s plans to base F-35 fighter jets at Truax is totally antithetical to your professed desire to ‘make sure our kids can bring their full and best selves to our schools and our classrooms.’ With seven interruptions of their school day each hour and 7,190 flight take-offs and landings each year, there is no way our children can possibly bring their ‘best selves’ to school-physically, mentally or emotionally.”  

“While you are trying to convince the State Legislature to invest more funds in schools and mental health services, the Air Force will be squandering $2,200 million of our tax dollars on one squadron of first-strike bombers that will bring all of your well-intentioned efforts to naught,” the ad continued.  

The day after the ad was published, a group of Madison and Midwest activists blocked the entrance to the Governor’s office in an attempt to get his attention and to demand that he meet with the Safe Skies coalition. There was no response from the Governor.  

“Unlike the F-35s, which the Air Force admits are four times louder than the former F-16’s, the Governor has been quieter than a church mouse on this issue,” commented Safe Skies organizer Tom Boswell. “By the time he speaks up and addresses the concerns of his constituents on this issue, it may be too late to protect our infants and school children from the egregious damage the F-35s are likely to cause.”

Sponsored by Safe Skies Clean Water Coalition