Sound Effects — In the F-35’s flight path, Vermonters’ lives have changed
By COLIN FLANDERS
JULY 07, 2021
A sudden roar announced that the military jets were taking to the sky again.
Julia Parise’s son had developed a routine for whenever this happened: He would look to his mother and assess whether it was “one of them” — the F-35 fighter jets that had become such a constant presence in his young life — before asking her to cover his ears. He might do it himself, recalling aloud her reassurances as he did: “They won’t hurt me. They won’t hurt me.”
But as the 2-year-old boy scaled a jungle gym at Winooski’s Landry Park on this summer day in 2020, the noise snuck up on him. He tried to reach Parise as the jets began their ascent from Burlington International Airport, but there wasn’t enough time. It was not until the last jet had passed overhead that Parise realized he was speaking to her.
“I pooped,” he said through tears. “I pooped.” It was his first accident since he had been potty-trained six months before.