I'd like to be an Air Marshall

I read an article in The Toronto Star about Canada's RCMP Air Marshalls. These are the guys who sit on planes and wait for shit to happen, then spring into action to kick some terrorist ass.

This is one of those jobs i'd like to have if i wasn't doing what i do now.

It's not that I have a death wish, since this sort of job dramatically increases the probability i'm gonna get blown up or stabbed or shot. That stuff doesn't seem like a whole lot of fun. What also is not fun is having to sit in crappy, tight airplane seats for hours and hours, day in and day out.

So what's the appeal? Well, it's sort of like being a secret agent. Kind of like being James Bond, which is inherently very cool for most guys. But instead of being the kind of secret agent who is chasing Russian mobsters in helicopters, jumping from buildings and driving expensive cars along the italian coastline, it's a different kind of secret agent.

See, as an air marshall, for the most part, all I'd have to do is sit around. Sit around and do nothing. Sort of like a lazy man's secret agent. Because all that regular high octane James Bond stuff, in the immortal words of one Michael Thiessen, stinks of effort.

But make no mistake. These air marshall guys are no pushovers. They are highly trained of course, but what's cool is that they are trained specifically for the scenarios that could take place in airplanes. How awesome is high level martial arts training where they learn how to fight in very tight quarters, like in an airplane? Let's say I decided to get in a fight with one of these guys, say, in a desert, with lots of space, I can pretty much guarantee i'd get my ass kicked severely. But in an airplane? The beatdown on me would be even worse, because these guys would quickly use the natural items and space in an airplane cabin to take me down. I go to take a swing at him - BAM - he opens the overhead storage compartment panel to block my punch and obscure my vision, then with ninja like speed he's on the narrow floor and karate chopping my knee, which, incidentally, is already weakened from a ball hockey injury (provided, i should add, from a 5'3 Asian woman).

These guys mean business. Along with their fighting skills, they even learn to adapt their breathing in high altitude situations, so when i'm on the floor weezing, crying and holding my busted knee, his lungs are operating just fine thank you very much. And if that wasn't enough, they're also packing some heat of course. And you're automatically cooler when you have a gun right? Just ask an NBA player.

But the best thing about being an air marshall is what doesn't occur.

See, since the air marshall program started in Canada in 2002, not once has a marshall had to spring into action on a plane. And rest assured, they are there. And from what i've read, they do not work alone, meaning there are likely at least 2 on any random flight, sitting in different sections of the plane, pretending they don't know each other. That's some cool shit.

Likewise, I had wondered about how these guys might respond in the event of a drunken, air ragey passenger . Well i found out. They do nothing! Awesome! Their concern is only for hijackings and terrorists, and not some fool who had too many rum and cokes. But the main reason they don't respond to those situations is that it could be a ruse by terrorists to find out who the air marshalls on the plane are. So, they ignore those jackasses.

On a similar note, the gig also reminds me of that scene in Schindler's List, where Schindler does that Jedi mind trick on Ralph Fienne's character, the Nazi who picks off the Jews with a rifle in the concentration camp. Fienne's Nazi character gets off on having this power over life and death, comfortably sitting up in his perch killing people randomly. But Schindler convinces him that he is actually more powerful by not killing them. It's the potential threat that is scarier than actually going through with it.

Likewise, that would be like me, the highly-trained, deadly air marshall comfortably sitting in my seat, wearing a plain blue dress shirt and tan coloured Dockers, reading my magazine, smiling pleasantly as i thank the flight attendant for providing my in flight meal, which naturally i would wash down with a martini, shaken, not stirred.