Icarus Room

    We have conference rooms in my building.  Places where men and women can assemble and discuss issues of importance, convey concise and meticulously prepared briefings, inform commanders, and seek resolution of problems and have decisions made.  These are typical rooms with a table in the middle and chairs around, with extra seating along the walls as the room will bear.

    Someone got the bright idea that each room should be named after something of significance in our organizations history.  For example the commanders conference room is called the Chindit Room.  It is named after the British commando group that fought in the Burma Theater of operations in World War II.  The Chindits were led by British Brigadier General Orde Charles Wingate and were made up regular British Army, Gurkha’s and British Indian Army units.  This is significant to us   because we trace our lineage back to the 1^st Air Commando Group, organized by the Army Air Force to support them.  An interesting side note:   they were the first unit to use a helicopter in an actual operation.

    The main conference room is of course the Air Commando Room, again reflecting back to our founding and what all Air Force Special Operators refer to themselves as.  Then we have the Jungle Jim Room, named after the force assembled in the early 1960’s to help train the South Vietnamese.  There is a Farmgate room named after the first deployment of the Air Commando Group to VietNam, and the Partisan Room, reflecting Special Operations support in the European Theater. 

    I am surprised we don’t have a Carpetbagger Room, to recall the name of the force that flew in Europe in WWII, but being in a Southern state I guess there have to be some allowances for the political sensitivities towards Carpetbaggers in the area.

    Then we have smaller rooms like the SonTay (a raid to rescue POW’s in North VietNam) and Spirit (after the call sign for an AC-130 shot down in Desert Storm).  Finally we have the A5/8/9 War Room.  I think we can do better than that and take the harsh edge off this whole “war” thing.

    I proposed we call it the Icarus Room, named after one of the hero’s of the Greek Legend of Daedalos and his son Icarus.  The story goes that once upon a time on the island of Crete a king named Minos who had Daedalos, a great architect and inventor build a great Labyrinth so King Minos could keep his Minotaur.  After the Labyrinth was build King Minos imprisoned Daedalos and his son in a high tower so they could not tell anyone the secret of the Labyrinth.

    Daedalos and Icarus did not like being prisoners so Deadalos came up with a scheme to build wings from bird feathers and wax.  Daedalos warned his son to be careful when they were flying.  Too low to the water and he might fall in, but if he flew too high in the sky the sun would melt the wax on his wings and he would fall.

    So they set off for to fly away for their freedom.  At first everything went well, but after a little while Icarus got tired of just flying in a straight line. He began to try to do tricks and go up and down. His father told him to cut it out and behave himself, but Icarus was having too much fun to listen, and he kept on going up, higher and higher. Suddenly he realized his wings really WERE melting! He tried to go back down again, but it was too late. His wings came apart, and he fell into the ocean, where he drowned.

    Daedalus was horrified that his son had died, and spent a long time searching for his body, but when he found it there was nothing he could do.

    So why would I call the room the Icarus Room?  It is the place where we come up with grandiose ideas that rise up so high they melt and come crashing down.