Americans must expand their sense of identity to stave off the divisive effects of immigration, Harvard U. professor Robert Putnam said in the lecture, “E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in a Changing America.” A new national identity — one that welcomes the diverse backgrounds of immigrants — should be promoted by policymakers and embraced by citizens, Putnam told the audience at Dartmouth College on Friday afternoon.

How to integrate immigrants into society should be included in the dialogue as policymakers discuss how to combat illegal immigration, Putnam said.

In the current immigration debate, too much focus has been placed on how to keep immigrants out — “how high the wall should be,” Putnam said in an interview with The Dartmouth.

Illegal immigrants can be detrimental to integration because they are more isolated from society, according to Putnam.

Policymakers must expand national identity to embrace immigrants through increased funding for English-language training, civic education of new immigrants and increased federal support for local services in areas that have not experienced heavy immigration in the past, Putnam said.

Rather than suggesting that community diversity should be discouraged or that immigration should be slowed to avoid this conflict, Putnam said that Americans should work to deconstruct existing notions of what factors constitute significant cultural differences. Most social divisions are artificial and can be avoided by developing a broader sense of inclusion or identity, he said in the lecture.

“The question is not how to make them like us — the question is how to make a new ‘us,’” he said.

Putnam pointed to two modern institutions — the U.S. military and large evangelical Christian churches — as examples of organizations in which people from diverse backgrounds look beyond cultural affiliations in search of a broader, more significant identity. He noted that in each of these cases, individuals’ backgrounds are not erased, but simply cease to be significant social barriers.

“Think over the next several months about how we as a country can make a more encompassing sense of ‘we,’” Putnam said.

Putnam discussed diversity and immigration as they relate to his overall research on social capital, in which he considers social networks and connections as assets with tangible value. His books, “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community,” published in 2000, and “Better Together: Restoring the American Community,” both discussed shifts in social capital among Americans in recent decades.

Putnam emphasized the distinction between “binding” social capital — social networks that link similar people — and “bridging” social capital, or networks that link diverse people. He said that while bridging social capital is more beneficial to society in the long run, it is also more difficult to generate.

Increasing societal diversity, which is occurring in all industrial nations as an outgrowth of immigration, is generally a beneficial asset, resulting in expanded cultural richness, creativity, productivity and global development, according to Putnam.

Recent evidence suggests that increases in diversity might inhibit the development of social capital in the short term, Putnam said.

Putnam cited evidence from the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey, conducted by researchers from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in 2000, suggesting that people in more diverse communities tend to have more negative views of people from different racial backgrounds. Even though people in less diverse communities have fewer opportunities to have friends of different backgrounds, they still have more friends from different racial groups, Putnam said.

People in diverse communities are less likely to trust people of their own race, including their own neighbors, according to Putnam.

He added that people in more diverse environments tend to be less engaged in their community, are not as prepared for collective action problems such as disasters and have fewer close friends than people in less diverse locations.

People living in more diverse areas — such as Los Angeles — tend to “hunker down” and possess less social capital than those from more homogenous settings such as New Hampshire, Putnam said.

Last month, my friend gave me a mix CD for my birthday titled “Release Your Sexual Energy.” It turned out to be a collection of Playboy-style pictures of my friends’ bodies spelling out the letters in my name.

Just kidding. But this uniquely-named CD did shock me in a different way. It made me realize that about a year ago, when I was having daily panic attacks about leaving the safety of my home to go to college, I never would have believed that I would be this comfortable or happy with the people that I would meet here.

As I finish up my freshman year, it’s only natural to reflect back on the events that defined this momentous year. A few nights ago, two of my friends and I tried to identify “the best days of this year” – Big Game Day, Homecoming Weekend and some late-night hangouts were among the winners. And while the aforementioned do capture some lovely memories, it’s not fair to attribute everything that made this year great to a select few Saturdays.

Instead, I have come to the rather ordinary conclusion that this year was made special by the connections I established in the past 10 months. I have also come to the not-so-ordinary conclusion that I made all of these connections through sex.

Don’t get too excited – I’m not referring to “buddies” I made through a series of one-night stands or drunken hookups. So now you’re probably wondering, what does sex have to do with creating lasting platonic relationships? A lot actually.

In high school, friend-making usually went something like this: you meet someone, become friends and eventually your conversations become more intimate. In college, it’s backwards: you’ll hear people going at it in the communal showers, awkwardly tease them and only then become friends, thereby changing friendship dynamics completely.

As horny college students, it’s not news to us that sex is a common topic. And even though I’m just a freshman, don’t pretend you don’t remember your days in the dorms, when the Crossroads menu determined your mood and the thought of a threesome still made you blush. It’s through my experiences this year and some intensive research (daydreaming at my desk, obsessively reading AnonCon), that I realized that it’s through these conversations that people bond.

For example, a few of my floormates and I hosted a floor dinner during dead week of last semester. Sounds innocent enough, right? Wrong. Its title, which is inappropriate for this publication, sounded like the name of a giant orgy … and it was themed “Hobo-Erotica.” It involved my floormates dressing in plaid shirts, acting slutty and cooking – then devouring – delicious food. The windows of our lounge even steamed up since there were so many (half-naked) bodies and so much warm food – and raw sexual energy, of course.

This event, which marked the end of our first semester together as freshmen, probably wouldn’t have been nearly as memorable if it wasn’t sex-themed – we probably would have taken cutesy pictures and eaten in silence. Instead we screamed and giggled for hours, making it one of the greatest nights of freshman year.

By getting those people who would normally say, “Oh my god, this is so awkward” (me) to join in on the fun, we crossed the large dividing line between acquaintances and real friends. And to top it off, a sexually themed game of Bananagrams ensued after. (Who knew that “wetdream” used up so many tiles?)

It was this night that, by embracing sex, we embraced how comfortable we are with each other.

Overall, sex-related occurrences – sharing unusual experiences, trying to identify who has been spending the night next door, analyzing suspicious sounds emitted from the room down the hall – brought my friends and me closer together, helping us evolve from just roommates, floormates and classmates into friends.

Living in such close proximity makes us privy to things we would rather not know but also forces us to become comfortable with talking about sex, and maybe more importantly, being mocked about it.

Anyhow, I could probably go on forever about how this has shaped my successful freshman experience. But basically what I’m saying is that if I had to come up with some high-falutin’ thesis to support all the evidence from freshman year, show authorial intent and connect to a broader meaning, I would choose sex. It’s exactly like a thesis for one of my English classes … except this isn’t bullshit.

So in simpler terms, I owe it all to you, sex.

Instead of securing last-minute graduation tickets and dealing with frantic relatives before graduation like most U. California-Berkeley seniors, Horacio Corona and Alejandro Lara-Briseno are enduring the hunger pangs of going without food for more than 168 hours.

For one week, about 18 hunger strikers from the “Hungry for Justice Coalition” have been camped out in front of California Hall, awaiting the return of Chancellor Robert Birgeneau from Europe.

The strikers are demanding Birgeneau publicly denounce a recent Arizona immigration law, make UC Berkeley a sanctuary campus and provide extended protections for undocumented students, drop all student conduct charges against activists, stop cuts to low-wage employees, suspend conduct procedures and initiate a democratic, student-led process to review the code, as well as commit to using nonviolent means to ensure safety at demonstrations.

Concern for the strikers’ health has caused campus administrators to announce new initiatives as incentives to end the strike, but demonstrators say they are determined to continue despite impacts to their health.

“It’s hard to focus because of a lot of sleep deprivation since we are sleeping outside,” Corona said.

Though the campus administration has produced three responses to the demands and has met with members of the coalition, the strikers said they will remain outside until they meet with Birgeneau.

In a statement released Friday, Birgeneau acquiesced to one of the strikers’ demands by publicly calling for the repeal of the Arizona law.

Another statement released Friday by Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost George Breslauer and Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Harry Le Grande said the campus would create a task force “to identify and articulate the issues and needs of undocumented students at Cal,” ensure student representation in the review of the code of student conduct, take steps towards creating an “inclusive” campus climate and treat staff as “compassionately as possible.”

The campus administration has also said they will form a task force that will include students, faculty and staff, to review and possibly revise the code of student conduct. Charges against students involved in the Dec. 11 “Open University” were recently dropped.

Strikers said they remain unmoved and “disillusioned” with campus responses and continue to stand by their prior demands. Lara-Briseno said he already knew about the initiatives announced by Breslauer and Le Grande before the letter was released and is “unimpressed.”

“We are still set on demands in terms of student conduct for them to drop the charges against the protesters,” Corona said. “We believe they charged these students under undue process. A lot of these students are our personal friends that are committed and invested leaders in Chicano groups.”

Staff from the Tang Center continue to check on the strikers daily, making sure they are sufficiently hydrated by drinking cranberry juice and are retaining fluids, said Kim LaPean, communications manager for University Health Services.

Nancy Amy, associate professor of nutritional science and toxicology at UC Berkeley, said it would take a month before strikers would feel the physical effects of not eating, but they will feel other “psychological changes” much sooner. She added that administrators should be worried about the strikers’ lack of sleep rather than their lack of food.

“There have been people who have participated in hunger strikes for months,” she said. “If people continue not sleeping after two days, they start experiencing serious consequences such as hallucinations.”

Lara-Briseno said he is willing to continue going without food until he graduates.

“Us staying on the hunger strike is our way to pressure them and ensure that they won’t provide us with false words,” he said.

Players and students rushed the court as the No. 1 seed Stanford U. men’s volleyball team swept No. 3 seed Penn State U. in a near-perfect performance to win its first national championship since 1997.

The wooden national championship trophy sat safely behind the court as the two teams warmed up, and television cameras panned over the large and boisterous crowd in Maples Pavilion.

“We had 6,635 people there today,” said senior opposite Evan Romero after the match. “That’s 6,600 more people than we had our freshman year. As they’ve come to our games, it’s just revived us.”

The stands erupted in cheers as Penn State missed the opening serve of the match. But the Nittany Lions would fight back to win the next point, a back-and-forth pattern that recurred for the majority of the first set.

Every hitting option was delivering. Junior outside hitter Spencer McLachlin had an early kill that deflected off Penn State’s blockers, while Romero killed a ball cross-court. Sophomore outside hitter Brad Lawson came alive at 7-5, killing a ball straight down the line.

Consecutive missed serves from Stanford in addition to Penn State kills kept the Nittany Lions in the game, with the set tied as late as 19-19. But four Lawson kills in the final stretch, combined with two from Romero and an ace after a timeout, helped the Card pull away. Romero slammed a ball hard down the line, tipping off Penn State libero Dennis Del Valle’s hand, to win the set, 30-25.

The second set opened with a McLachlin roll shot that landed untouched at the 10-foot line. But the Nittany Lions gained some momentum after a well-executed dump by setter Edgardo Goas and multiple Stanford hitting errors, taking their biggest lead of the match at 10-5.

However, despite a slow start, Stanford fought back with a run of its own. Sophomore middle blocker Gus Ellis used Penn State’s block for a kill, while a Romero hit was sent flying into the stands by a misplaced Penn State pass. In back-to-back plays, the Nittany Lions over-passed balls, only to have Romero and McLachlin pound them back for kills.

Sophomore libero Erik Shoji had several remarkable saves to keep difficult balls in play. At 13-12, he had a diving dig from middle back that senior setter Kawika Shoji perfectly set up for a Lawson kill out of the back row. Later, Kawika Shoji dug a hard-hit ball that appeared to be going down, leading to a McLachlin kill.

While Stanford heated up, Penn State unraveled. A set by Goas fell untouched past a hitter, and then outside hitter Will Price mishit a ball into the net. Goas was called for a double hit to give the Card set point, and a Lawson serve flew wildly off Penn State outside hitter Joe Sunder for an ace, clinching the second set victory, 30-20.

Stanford led from the first point of the third set – unsurprisingly, off another Lawson kill – and never looked back. Romero began to take advantage of the line, while Lawson continued to dominate. The crowd began to chant, “You can’t stop him!” in reference to Lawson’s stellar play.

“You talk about being in the zone,” said head coach John Kosty. “When a player gets in the zone, you don’t talk to him, you don’t slap his hand, you don’t do anything, just let him be. Brad [was in a zone] tonight.”

The end of the set was all Stanford. Kawika Shoji sneakily set a ball over for the kill, and McLachlin put a ball down off a Romero bump set. Price missed a serve for Penn State, bringing the score to 28-17, and a Lawson-Ellis roof block gave the Card match point. Finishing off a heroic evening, Lawson slammed a ball cross-court to win the set, and national title, 30-18.

“It’s the national championship, there’s nothing really like it,” Lawson said. “It was just great to have a good night tonight.”

Lawson had a phenomenal night, tallying 24 kills and only one error – an illegal back row attack that appeared to have gone down for the kill – to hit an impressive .821. His success extended to the back row as well, as he had five digs and a team-leading four aces.

“Early in the first [set], to be honest, I was nervous,” Lawson said. “But as I started to go through, I settled in. Kawika [Shoji] was just delivering the ball to the spot… and it was easy from that point.”

McLachlin and Romero were also powerful offensive forces for the Card, with 12 and 11 kills, respectively, to aid Stanford to .495 hitting for the match. Kawika Shoji had 47 assists, bringing his season total to 1,455, and both he and his brother Erik Shoji led the Cardinal defense with 10 digs apiece.

For the Nittany Lions, Price tallied 15 kills and two aces. Sunder contributed 12 kills, and middle blocker Max Lipsitz added another 10. Goas put up 38 assists, and Del Valle led the match with 12 digs.

Following the match, the Stanford players received national championship shirts and hats, and fans swarmed the court. Individual awards were distributed to the players and coaches, and the seniors stepped forward to accept the championship trophy. The team posed for photos and took turns cutting pieces of the net.

The All-Tournament Team was announced after the match, highlighted by Lawson, Romero, Erik Shoji and Kawika Shoji for Stanford. To cap off their various accolades this season, Lawson and Kawika Shoji were named co-Most Outstanding Players of the tournament.

Led by a class of seniors – Kawika Shoji, Romero, middle blocker Garrett Werner, outside hitter Jason Palacios and outside hitter-turned-team manager Ed Howell – who went 3-25 in their freshman season on the Farm, this win, the grand finale of the “Worst to First” journey, was particularly meaningful.

“It’s been a long road for us,” Kosty said. “It’s an incredible feeling to watch this team and how they’ve grown over the four years. It really shows what hard work and dedication can do for you.”

“I had hope. I dreamed,” Kawika Shoji added. “I don’t know if I would say I expected it, but I knew that a lot of hard work could get this team far.”

The Amphitheater was silent for several minutes as candles flickered in the dark. It was as if the faces behind them, of those who had gathered to commemorate the life of Yeardley Love — and reflect on the bonds of community that were broken as a result of her tragic death — had blended against the dark of the setting sun.

The vigil Wednesday night to honor Love was coming to a close. Students, some in tears, rose silently and returned to their dorms and apartments, privately contemplating the words of the speakers, who urged them to remember Love’s contributions to U. Virginia and the indignity of her passing.

University President John T. Casteen, III, who spoke first at the event, said the candlelight vigil was “not a forum to examine those charges or the evidence that will eventually make its way to court.” But rather, he said, it was a forum to honor Love’s accomplishments as someone who “excelled at what she undertook to do in life, and … excelled in what she chose to be.”

Love, who was found dead early Monday morning in her Charlottesville apartment, “did nothing to deserve to be attacked and beaten, to deserve to suffer the injuries of which we have all read in the police reports, to deserve to die,” Casteen told the thousands of students and community members gathered to remember her.

“For that matter,” he added, “that no woman beaten, thrown against walls, or in any way abused has ever deserved either to suffer or to die.”

Love’s body showed signs of visible physical trauma when police arrived at her apartment just after 2 a.m. According to an affidavit obtained by The Daily Progress, Huguely admitted to shaking Love during a physical altercation, allowing her head to strike a wall multiple times. Police arrested Huguely and charged him with first-degree murder just hours later after the incident. Huguely’s lawyer called the death “an accident with a tragic outcome” and vowed to fight the charges.

“Yeardley’s death is beyond belief,” Fourth Year Trustees President Sarah Elaine Hart told the crowd. “And the actions that led to her death are painfully difficult to think about. But for many of us, there has been little else to think about these days.”

Many students were in attendance Wednesday to commemorate Love, whose sudden death brought shock and grief to the student body. Casteen addressed the crowd first, followed by Hart, then Student Council President Colin Hood. Performances by the Virginia Belles and Virginia Gentlemen opened and closed the vigil, which dozens of media outlets both nationwide and in Charlottesville came to witness.

Reflection regarding the death of Love, Casteen said, should stir up anger among students that one of their peers was unjustly taken from their ranks. And lessons should be learned, he said, from the violence that brought about the injustice.

“My hope for Yeardley, and for you,” he said, “is that her death inspires an anger, a sense of outrage that engenders determination here and wherever Yeardley’s name is recognized that no woman, no person in this place, this community, this state, our nation need either fear for her safety or experience violence for any reason.”

Coping with the scope of the loss, however, and the ways to move forward after the tragedy will be particularly difficult, UVA senior Marissa Nadeau said after the event, particularly considering how incomprehensible the crime remains to many students.

“There is so much sadness and confusion as to how such a tragedy could occur,” Nadeau said. “It is so scary to think how similar our life situations were. We were both about to graduate and start new things, but that will no longer happen for Yeardley.”

Hart, too, expressed what the loss of a classmate so soon to graduation meant to the community of fourth-year students. Love will be awarded a posthumous diploma in her honor.

“In a few short weeks we will walk the Lawn together during graduation,” Hart said. “And there is no doubt that there will be a seat at that ceremony that now cannot possibly be filled.”

Finding ways to reconcile such a tragedy will be difficult, Casteen said. But nevertheless, students must stand against this injustice, he said, and through the strengthening of community bonds form a united front against the type of violence and abuse inflicted against Love.

“Tuck away in your soul the knowledge that neither Yeardley Love nor any woman ever attacked has deserved it,” Casteen said, “that no victim in the end has to suffer, has to die, but that together we are the protection, that we must act together to protect one another and to see to it that the things we’ve learned here become and remain true in the world to which we go after this place.

“May God bless Yeardley Love.”

Palmerfest revelers started at couch fire after 11 p.m. Saturday, causing police to shut down the fest near the Ohio U. campus for the second year in a row.

Police used horses, batons and other riot equipment to evacuate Palmer Street, saying things such as “everybody goes” and “get out while you can.”

At about 11 p.m., several partygoers attempted several times to light a white cloth on fire in the middle of Palmer Street. One partygoer stamped the fire out. Minutes later, people began booing at the police and throwing bottles and cans at them.

At about 11:07 p.m., a police officer fell off his horse while trying to break up the crowd. The officer was not hurt. At about 11:20 p.m., revelers successfully started a fire making it necessary for the Athens Fire Department to extinguish the blaze. By midnight, the street was mostly cleared.

Police arrested 30 people, 10 of whom were Ohio U. students.

The City of Athens spent $32,000 for more police and fire-safety officials at fests this year, according to a previous article in The Post.

The number of police officers on horses increased from five earlier in the day to 15 by the end of the night.

One horse received minor cuts and one police officer was injured at Palmerfest.

“I think it’s bullshit that (police) are allowed to come back (behind the houses),” said Casey Morgan, a student at Wright State U. Morgan said he was pushed by police with batons into a backyard.

Despite the increase in security, Assistant Service-Safety Director Ron Lucas, who also serves as the city’s public information officer, said he was not expecting a fire.

“There were a number of years where the party came and the party went,” he said.

“I was disappointed that it had to end the way it did,” he added later.

Some attendees also expressed disappointment in fellow partygoers’ actions.

“They light couches on fire; that’s kind of pathetic,” said Ohio U. freshmen Tyler Arnold. “You would think they would have learned their lesson last year.”

Last year, revelers lit three couches on fire beginning at about 10 p.m. They also threw bottles at police officers and horses. Five horses were injured. One partygoer tried to steal the stop sign at the corner of Palmer and Mill Streets, but he was quickly apprehended by undercover police officers, according to a previous Post article.

On April 24 this year, police had to shut down High Fest because partygoers lit plastic lawn furniture and trash cans on fire in the middle of the street at about 10:40 p.m.

Five weeks to the day that Tim Welsh was hired as the new men’s basketball coach at Hofstra U., the school announced the hiring of Mo Cassara to the same position.

Welsh resigned as head coach Monday, May 3, just three days after being arrested for a DWI. Welsh was found stopped at a steady green light at the intersection of Hempstead Turnpike and North Bellmore Rd. in Levittown, according to police reports.

Monday afternoon the University issued a statement that said, “Tim Welsh today tendered his resignation as the Hofstra University men’s basketball coach. The University accepted the resignation in the best interests of the University and of the men’s basketball program.”

Welsh was hired March 31 to replace Tom Pecora, who had left just a week prior for Fordham.

University athletic director Jack Hayes said that no red flags were raised when the school conducted the process of hiring Welsh. “Not one,” Hayes said. “When you do your due diligence, when you contact the people in the business that we spoke with, when you do background checks and all those things come out the way you would expect, you move forward and you make a decision.”

Cassara was hired by Welsh to be an assistant coach on his staff. After Welsh’s resignation the school worked swiftly and hired Cassara. Cassara could not put his excitement into words Wednesday afternoon. “I really can’t,” he said. “I think this is an opportunity that presented itself that I really, certainly didn’t expect.”

Hayes was pleased with the University’s decision. “We felt at the end of the day that was the best direction and we are very excited,” he said.

Cassara will not only have to win basketball games but help rehab the image of a program that has been portrayed negatively since Welsh’s incident. “There is certainly not going to be a quick fix to that, but that is certainly something that, with the staff we have in place and this terrific administration, we will continue to just move past and continue to grow. And I think that if we do the right thing, this program will be in great shape and it has been in great shape for many years,” Cassara said.

“I don’t think the image of Hofstra or Hofstra basketball took a hit,” Hayes said. “I think we certainly had an unfortunate and dissapointing situation occur but I think Coach Cassara is the right person for the job and the right person to lead Hofstra.”

Cassara can prove Hayes right by winning, and winning in year one could be a bit easier because of reigning CAA Player of the Year and back-to-back Haggerty Award winner Charles Jenkins. “I think Charles Jenkins can be a terrific, terrific player,” Cassara said. “I think he could be a terrific player in anybody’s system.”

Hayes agrees that Cassara can win in year one. “I think he can,” Hayes said. “I think he thinks he can win and that is what is most important.”

Cassara will have time to establish himself as a winner though. Despite rumors that the Pride were looking for a caretaker instead of a long term coach, Cassara received a multi-year deal. “Some questions came up that this appointment was made on a interim basis and it was not,” Hayes said.

The process of hiring Cassara was far different from the one Hayes went through with Welsh. “Our process was different because our circumstances were different,” said Hayes. “What we did five weeks ago and how we went about it, I think was the right way to do it.”

Hayes previously told The Chronicle that he was looking for someone with prior head coaching experience, which Cassara has, but not at the level of some other rumored candidates. Cassara had been an assistant coach in the ACC with Boston College for four years but was head coach of Clark University in Massachusetts for two years prior to joining the BC Eagles.

“We did [look at head coaches] but we also took a look at what we had on our own staff and felt fairly quickly that that was the best way to go,” Hayes said.

The Blue Angels performed and served as the main attraction in the annual air show in Vidalia, Ga. last weekend.

The Blue Angels perform every two years for the Vidalia Onion Festival while they complete their annual air show and demonstration circuit to represent the Navy and Marine Corps.

“We’re just lucky enough to represent the 650,000 sailors and marines out there week in and week out, taking the Navy and Marine Corps to places like Vidalia, Ga. where we can’t bring an aircraft out here and show people what the Navy is about,” said Lt. C.J. Simonsen, the Advanced Pilot and Narrator, as well as Blue Angel Number Seven for the Blue Angels. “It’s our way of bringing the Navy and Marine Corps to small town America.”

The Blue Angels are scheduled to perform 68 air shows at 35 air show sites in the year 2010, taking up a total of nine months out of the year.

The U.S. Navy’s Flight Demonstration Squadron consists of six F/A-18 Hornets as well as a seventh for backup and a C-130 also known as Fat Albert that begins the show with a 10-minute performance. The Blue Angel pilots are Number One: Cmdr. Greg McWherter “Boss,” Two: Lt. Jim Tomaszeski, Three: Lt. Rob Kurrle, Four: Maj. Christopher Collins, Five and Lead Solo Five: Lt. Cmdr. Frank Weisser, and Opposing Solo Six: Lt. Ben Walborn.

“The solos—Five and Six—will pull eight Gs every time they fly while the diamond demonstrates the precision flying of Navy and Marine Corps pilots. They normally pull about seven Gs, so they pull a little less, but it’s usually more graceful flying,” said Simonsen. “When they’re in the diamond flying, they’re only a foot and a half (18 inches) apart.

“The solo demonstrators though, they’re the ones who really show what the F/A-18 is built to do,” he said.

Before the Blue Angels are permitted to fly in an air show, they must complete a three-month training process in a remote location in El Centro, California.

“We will fly 2-3 times a day, 6 days a week,” said Simonsen. “We’ll go out to the desert, where no one can see us except our Maintenance Officer and our Flight Doc out there watching us, grading every single flight; and we basically do the same thing every single day.”

The pilots train through a habit pattern in order to properly learn the demonstration.

“The human body really likes habit, so if you keep doing things over and over again, it’ll just become second nature for you when you’re up there flying,” Simonsen said.

The Blue Angels fly 15 times a week from Jan. 4 through March 13 as a training period before beginning the air show circuit.

“It’s a very rigorous, grueling training, but it’s definitely necessary so we can put on a safe demonstration for everyone,” Simonsen said. “We’ll fly 120 training flights before we even go public with our demonstration.”

Even though the members of the Blue Angel team practice the demonstration 120 times before flying in air shows, there have been fatalities. However, Simonsen said that they take those bad circumstances and learn from them in order to make a safer demonstration for years to come.

“The air show industry is a very unforgiving business,” he said. “You make a little mistake, and it can turn into something bad quickly, but we train so much so we can put on a safe demonstration for everybody here in Vidalia and throughout America.”

The F/A-18 Hornets are equipped with ejection seats and parachutes for cases of emergency. Each pilot also has emergency procedures memorized.

“We have folks on the ground, our safety observers who will have an emergency book so if things happen they can talk us through stuff so we can get the jet on deck as safely as possible,” he said.

The Blue Angels cannot complete their show circuits without the support of the C-130 Transport Aircraft for the Blue Angels, also known as the Fat Albert.

“Our primary mission is logistical support for the team so we take 30,000 pounds of parts and equipment as well as 40 maintainers, we load up on the airplane and we travel from show site to show site,” said Joe Alley, the navigator for the Fat Albert. “The jets can’t put on a show without that support, so our role to them is very critical. So that’s our primary mission, but in addition to that, we also put on a demonstration that we open the show with.”

In the fleet, the pilots use the C-130 for aerial refueling and troupe resupply. It allows them to go into very obscure locations. The C-130 can hold a maximum gross weight of 170,000 pounds. The plane weighs 80,000 pounds and can hold 42,000 pounds of fuel, leaving an extra 53,000 pounds for cargo.

Alley said that the crew has even dropped three Humvees from a height of 1,000 feet out of the back of a C-130. The vehicles were placed on corrugated cardboard platforms which absorb all the energy upon impact. The parachutes which were attached to the vehicles slowed the rate at which they dropped.

“We’re very utilized in the Iraq and Afghanistan theatre so there’s a lot we can do in carriage just because of the nature of the airplane. It can get in and out of really tight places,” he said.

Although Simonsen has never personally flown in an air show, as he is the seventh Blue Angel, he will next year. He served as the Narrator and Advanced pilot for two years, beginning with last year, and then will be in the demonstration for the next two years.

Weisser and Walborn, the pilots flying Five and Six, were previously Number Sevens. After Seven, they moved to Six, then the next year Five, as that is normally the way they move up through the ranks.

“I could go to number Three next year-the team will vote in September where I go-but normally it’s been Seven, then you go to Six, then you go to Five,” Simonsen said. “The guys that fly in the diamond, One through Four, they have only been on the team for two years, and then Five and Six will be on the team for three years.

“Number Five is actually our Operations Officer; he’s basically our number two ranking officer besides Boss, whose number one,” he said. “And typically we do everything in number order, one, two, three, four, five, six, and seven, that’s pretty much the ranking system.”

As Blue Angel Number Seven, Simonsen’s job is to give people rides in each town they visit. Number Seven is the only plane with two seats and therefore, is the only one that can serve as that position.

“I flew the principal at one of the schools here and I flew a Delta pilot, he basically works with kids in education,” he said. “Number Seven is basically the spare jet in case something breaks.”

Simonsen was initiated to the team after completing the “rushing” process that all the members must go through.

“It’s a process where any Marine Corps and F18 pilot can do what we do, the thing is you rush the team the way you rush a fraternity or a sorority,” he said. “Basically how it is, is you’ll see how well you get along with the current team members because we select the people that are coming in next year, so we’re the only organization in the Navy that will—no kidding—see the people, meet them, and invite them onto our team.

“It has nothing to do with skill, we’re all average pilots at best,” said Simonsen.

When finding new Blue Angel members, the biggest thing they concentrate on is personality since they are together 300 days a year. The pilots need to be able to get along with the others they accept to be on the team. The pilots will also need to be able to interact well in situations where people will ask them questions, as they constantly deal with fans and the media. They will need to answer and say what is on their mind in a good manner.

“We’re just a bunch of guys and gals that get together and we make a demonstration happen,” he said. “And we do it because: a) we trust each other, which is huge, and b) we all love what we’re doing, we all love that we’re representing the Navy and Marine Corps.”

In addition to flying air shows and representing the Navy and Marine Corps, the Blue Angels also spend their days recruiting kids at schools who might want to join the Navy or Marine Corps as an option of employment.

“We also realize that not every kid wants to be in the military,” said Simonsen. “So if we can inspire that kid that doesn’t want to go to the military to stay in school and do math, science, go out there and be engineers, be pilots, be scientists, to make this country better than what it is today, that’s really our number one goal is just to inspire kids.”

Simonsen said that when he was a little kid, he always heard the words Blue Angel and never thought he would be able to do something like that.

“I never thought I would be able to fly an F/A-18 let alone be a Blue Angel,” he said. “You set a goal high and you achieve it, set it higher than what you think you can make because that way you know what they say, you aim for the stars and you hit the moon.”

“So I always tell kids, never let anybody tell you something you can’t do because you can do anything in this world you want, which is why this country is such a great country because we do have the privilege and honor to choose what we want to be, as long as we work hard and stay in school we can do anything we want,” Simonsen said. “Being a Blue Angel is a dream come true and it’s something that’s very humbling for me to put this suit on everyday and to go out there and represent the Navy and Marine Corps.”