Commentary:
Breaking the sound barrier
by Edwin Dorn
From a speech delivered at the Tenth Annual Barbara Jordan Forum on Public Policy, March 24, 2006
We’re here to honor a woman who personified America at its best. Barbara Jordan accomplished many things, and each of us may value her for a different reason. Some of us emphasize her “firsts” – the first black woman to serve in the Texas Senate and to represent Texas in the US Congress. Others may focus on her oratory, the legislation she supported, her teaching, her fortitude, her wit, or her friendship.
Given what’s been happening in Washington recently, I’m inclined to emphasize Barbara Jordan’s integrity and competence in the performance of public service. But I also value her for another, more personal reason. Before I get to that, though, I’d like to tell you about one of my experiences in Washington. It’s a story about breaking the sound barrier.
Sound barrier
About a decade ago, I took a ride in the back seat of an F-15 fighter. We took off from an air force base near Anchorage, Alaska. The pilot flew over Mount McKinley, then made mock attacks on some practice ranges deep in the interior. It’s great fun when you’re only doing it for practice. From an altitude of 20 thousand feet, the pilot banks the plane sharply to one side and begins a steep dive. As he pulls out of the dive just a couple of thousand feet above the ground, you feel yourself being pushed back into the seat, and you feel the specially designed “G” suit tighten around your legs, keeping blood in your upper body so that you don’t black out.
When most of us think of fighter jets, we have an image of something small and sleek. Well, the F-15 is small and sleek – compared to a commercial airliner. These are big airplanes. An F-15 is about 60 feet long and weighs more than 60,000 pounds, fully loaded. Its two engines produce more than 40,000 pounds of thrust, which means the plane can reach speeds of 1,800 miles an hour – or about Mach 2.5. Importantly for my story, F-15s have dual controls: both the pilot and the navigator, who sits in the back seat, can fly the plane.
As we were flying back, the pilot asked me if I’d like to “take the stick.” I’m not a pilot, but there isn’t much to flying a modern fighter jet at 20,000 feet. It’s the takeoffs and the landings that require skill.
So, I took the stick in my right hand, grasped the throttle in my left, and started doing a few gentle maneuvers — a right turn, a left turn, a gentle climb, a shallow dive. It’s a great feeling, sitting underneath a bubble canopy that affords a virtually unobstructed view of the snow-capped mountains and dense forests.
Flying along, I started thinking about the first time somebody broke the sound barrier: Chuck Yeager, in 1947 — almost 60 years ago. Back then, the quest to break the sound barrier was a big deal. Several brave test pilots died in the attempt. As planes approached the speed of sound, Mach 1, their control surfaces became useless. The planes shook uncontrollably. Some of them literally disintegrated in midair. Finally, on a cloudless October day in the skies above the California desert, Yeager penetrated the magic barrier — 700 miles an hour at 43,000 feet — and made aviation history.
I started wondering what it felt like to break the sound barrier. So, I started easing the throttle forward and watching the air speed indicator climb toward Mach 1. Point 9 Mach . . . point 95 Mach . . . point 96. As I eased the throttle forward, I wondered when I would start to feel something. When would I notice a change in the feel of the controls, or in the sounds coming from the two jet engines that sat just a few feet behind me?
Point 98 . . . Point 99. Mach 1! I’d done it. Broken the sound barrier. Done something that, 60 years ago, many people believed was impossible.
Do you know what that felt like? Can you imagine the physical sensation?
Well, it felt like . . . nothing. . . . Zip. Nada. No vibration, no change in the cockpit sounds or in the feel of the stick. Modern fighters go through the sound barrier all the time. Without the air speed indicator, I would have had no way of knowing that anything had happened.
But the fact that I felt nothing does not mean that nothing happened. The moment that jet hit Mach 1, waves of compressed air emanating from its nose and wings started carving a path along the ground, 20,000 feet below. When that shock wave hit, it produced a sonic boom. Grazing moose bolted when they heard it; nesting birds were frightened into flight; windows rattled in whatever cabins may have existed deep in the Alaska wilderness.
Parable
That experience can be seen as a parable, a small story with a larger meaning. Often, we do things that have little effect on us, but that greatly affect other people.
Several of us in this room have had the experience of shaping public policy. Others of us aspire to do so – to figure out how to finance a better education for the children of Texas, how to extend affordable, quality health care to the 40 million Americans who don’t have health insurance, or how to achieve a just, stable peace between Palestine and Israel. When we are dealing with matters of that magnitude, individuals become statistical abstractions. We may never meet the people who are directly affected by the decisions we make. Certainly that’s true of those us who have helped make public policy in Washington.
But to some degree or other, every one of us is in that position. Every day, each of us does things or says things that may have an important impact on other people. More often than not, we’re not aware of the influence we’re exerting.
Barbara Jordan
Well, that’s all very nice, you may say, but what does it have to do with Barbara Jordan? I first met Barbara Jordan when I was in the ninth grade. She was a young lawyer just starting to set up a practice in Houston. You could say that I knew Barbara Jordan before she became Bar-ba-ra Jor-dan. She had been invited to speak at a student assembly one morning, and I was assigned to introduce her.
Now, public speaking was especially scary for me, because I had a speech defect. Some surgery had made it physically possible for me to pronounce words clearly, but it would take years of speech therapy for me to learn how to make my lips, tongue, diaphram and vocal cords work together. Every afternoon after school I went through a series of exercises: “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, a peck of pickled peppers, Peter Piper picked.”
Speaking in a normal manner was not easy. In order to make myself understood, I had to e-nun-ci-ate e-ve-ry syl-la-ble. It was tedious and embarrassing – so embarrassing that I seldom spoke up in class.
One of my teachers, I’m sure in a spirit of helpfulness, decided that one way for me to overcome my problem was to do more public speaking. Introducing Barbara Jordan was his view of therapy.
My introduction probably took no more than three minutes; but it was the longest three minutes of my life. After the first sentence, I could hear some of my classmates starting to giggle at my slow, self-conscious speech pattern. I struggled through the introduction, syl-la-ble by tor-tured syl-la-ble. It was humiliating; but an eternity of seconds later, I finally got to the end and Barbara Jordan came to the microphone.
She spoke like no one I’d ever heard before – in deliberate, carefully enunciated syllables. I began to wonder whether, if I continued to practice, I could eventually speak both clearly and naturally. Oh, I never aspired to Barbara Jordan’s deep, resonant eloquence. But I figured that maybe, if I worked hard at it, I could at least speak normally.
It took a long time. I doubt that I would have put in all those years of exertion, if Barbara Jordan had not provided a few minutes of inspiration.
Time passed. I finished high school and college, lived abroad for a couple of years, spent time in the Army, and went through a couple of graduate schools. Barbara’s trajectory took her from a small law practice in Houston to great success in politics, public service and teaching.
I saw her several times in Washington – after she became Bar-ba-ra Jor-dan. We talked about the kinds of things people in Washington talk about: politics and policy.
I never told her, though, that she had been an inspiration to me. That kind of thing would have been too, . . . well, too sentimental, too personal, too un-Washington.
And so, while we’re gathered here to celebrate Barbara Jordan’s impact on our state and on our nation, I want also to note the impact she had on one frightened kid.
Connection
Let me close by drawing all these things together. Here’s what connects a junior high school assembly, an F-15 flight, and the Barbara Jordan Forum. Someday, a few of us may do things that affect the lives of millions of people. But every day, all of us do things that affect somebody. Sometimes, in a thoughtless moment, we say things that hurt others deeply. And sometimes, in an equally accidental way, we say things that someone will find to be profoundly helpful or encouraging. More often than not, we do not know what effect we’re having.
Every day, with every interaction, you make a difference in someone’s life. Try to make it a positive difference.
If there’s an occasion for criticism, try to make it constructive criticism. If there’s an occasion for thanks, seize it; because we don’t say “thanks” often enough. (While we’re at it, let’s pause to thank Angela Simms, Masharika Prejean and all the other LBJ School students and staff who organized this year’s forum.)
Finally, if there’s an occasion to help define the common good, then speak with clarity, with conviction and with courage. If you are bothered by the fact that this country’s reputation in the world is at its lowest point in many decades, speak up. If you fear that individual liberty is being sacrificed in the interest of security, then speak up and push back. If you think that some of our public officials are corrupt, clueless and callous, speak up.
Our nation’s leaders, and those who aspire to be its leaders, need to hear your voice. But keep this in mind: in this country, there is no single, immutable definition of the common good. Our sense of what’s good for America – and of who speaks for America – is constantly changing. The common good is not a single, clear musical chord, played over and over. Rather, the common good comes from a cacophony of voices, a discordant diversity of opinions.
You should speak up when you feel that our country needs to change direction. Your voice will not always rise above the din, but when joined with millions of others, it can become part of a mighty chorus for change.
Every day, with every interaction, you have a chance to break a metaphorical sound barrier. Be inspired by that; be confident that you can make a difference. And be mindful of the influence you can have, because someone will feel your sonic boom.
