I will make a sincere attempt to respond to Harry Thy’s letter (Feb. 5) regarding President Donald Trump’s diversity, equity and inclusion comments following the deadly collision between the Black Hawk helicopter and the passenger jet.
In the more general sense, things tend to go wrong when you put the wrong people in the wrong place and for the wrong reasons. In the more specific sense, hiring people based on the concept of DEI (and sometimes DEI alone) tends to increase the likelihood of things going wrong — you can fake it for only so long, before you either make it or break it.
In the case of Trump’s comments, however, I think they were partly political, partly professional, and partly personal. Trump knew the pilot was a “relatively” inexperienced woman who was being trained by an experienced man, and I know from speaking to enough combat vets that mixing women in with men in certain military scenarios creates discomforts and tensions, which would not otherwise be present, creating significant distractions from doing your job properly — whether you’re a man or a woman. I attribute it to human nature.
As for the “uncaring animal” we elected … I am astonished that such a question is still on anyone’s mind.
Arthur Saginian
Santa Clarita
