Kelly Flinn

Re “Female B-52 Pilot Quits, Ends Battle With the Air Force,” May 23: I hate to sound mercenary, but what of the million dollars the Air Force spent on training 1st Lt. Kelly Flinn? The generals can afford to be hard-nosed. After all, blowing all that money is not going to diminish their standard of living.

I am a veteran of World War II. I observed sexual behavior, while in the service, that would make Flinn look like a God-fearing nun in comparison.

The decision for a general discharge is a compromise that robs us of a valuable resource. It would make more sense for the Air Force to issue a shoulder patch signifying a scarlet woman and allow her to continue to defend our country. Perhaps that would satisfy the hypocrites.

MARTIN BURTON

Rancho Palos Verdes

* At first glance, the Flinn and Air Force affair seemed to be a mere conflict between raging hormones in North Dakota and an anachronistic Air Force. However, on further examination the squalid details reveal far more. Principally, is this the best we can expect from four taxpayer-financed years at the Air Force Academy: a highly qualified pilot with a whimsical sense of the truth and a disregard for the chain of command? Or maybe it’s only a choice of role models--who knows, the commander in chief may have been hers.

TOM MADARA

Santa Monica

* Robert Scheer’s May 20 Column Left, “Scarlet A Stands for Absurd,” was right on target. However, Patrick Buchanan’s (Commentary, May 21) comparison to Tailhook was way out of line. In Tailhook, men forced themselves upon women. To my knowledge, Flinn was in a mutually consenting relationship.

LORI WOODS

Santa Monica

* If the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, now applicable only to gays in the military, is not extended to include the adulterers, who will be left to defend us?

RAYMOND FITZPATRICK

Beverly Hills

* Can you confirm that the headquarters for the Air Force has, indeed, been relocated to Salem, Mass.?

DIRCK Z. MEENGS