Mostly we are sad. Frustrated. Angry at our government and ashamed to be Americans.
We are part of an internationally codependent Antarctic system. What happens in the US, and therefore to us, could fuck science in Antarctica for so many stations and countries around the continent. McMurdo Station is a logistics hub for Australian, Russian, French, Italian, and New Zealand stations (and often others). When the French helicopter went down a few years ago? We sent one of our LC-130s to look. When other stations have a medevac, or a fire, or an emergency, we are often mustered to help them with our Air National Guard aircraft and crews. We get them from NZ to their stations for the summer. I cannot count how many times a 25+ strong crew of Russian or Italian or French or Australian station crew members have stayed with us for many days while they awaited the right weather window to fly to their own stations, delayed and housed and fed here. We work together. We are one big community when things go wrong here. And we are shutting down for the season.
So, I do not know what my future is. Few of us do.
But I do know one thing for sure: Who to blame.
Fuck the fucking Republicans for getting us into this mess with their intransigent selfish right wing ideological idiocy.
Fuck them for fucking up one of the most amazing things in the world, the US Antarctic Program.
Fuck. Them.
This government shutdown brought to you by the letters GOP.
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