Military IDs and airport security

[HueyPilot]

My TSA experiences

Funny, being in the military actually won me more attention a couple years back.

I was travelling to DFW for the C-21 simulator course. I handed them my orders and ID along with my boarding pass, and of course they hand-searched my bag in the first screening checkpoint. Inside I had my C-21 -1 and checklist, and of course then came the questions "sir, why do you have airplane flight manuals in your bag"...it took their supervisor to finally cool them down and leave me alone.

In another story, we were going to fly out commercial to pick up a broken jet at DMA, and they tried to confiscate our KYK. Got them pretty excited when we refused to give it up. And yes, we again had TDY orders in hand along with our IDs. And again it took a senior TSA airport official to tell the TSA peons to let us through.

I find it amazing that our country would bestow upon a person who would otherwise flip burgers at McDonalds the authority to confiscate classified materials from a verified and legitimate military officer on an official trip. Here they were harrassing the very people trying to fight the war on terror while dozens of 20-something men passed behind us, any of whom could have been terrorists.

 

[av8instyle]

here's a few funnies-

I was traveling in country to do a week of alert. It just so happened that I took leave from the airline to do this and the tickets the military gave me were from my own airline. So I had an airline ID from my own company, a full fare ticket on my own airline courtesy of the US Government, a military ID, and set of orders to fly a fully armed F-16 over American turf. And none of this was a good enough reason to get out of the search at security and a secondary search at the gate.

My wife was traveling non-rev with my 2 boys (4 & 1 at the time) and trying to get them through SEATAC when one of the Thousands Standing Around (TSA) stopped her and frantically searched for 10 minutes for the pair of "scissors" my 4 year old was smuggling through security in his Bob the Builder drag bag. 10 minutes later (wife thouroughly exhausted from coralling the boys) a national crisis was averted when the Thousands concluded that Mr. Potato Head's Sunglasses were not a threat to national security. Whew!

I literally stopped one day walking by security and laughed at the scene in front of my face. Remember shortly after 9-11 when the Guard was helping with security at the airports? Well picture this: Security Forces Squadron member walks through security to start a shift. Detector activates. Screener asks on-duty military security member to spread 'em for a wanding (STS). Military member obliges. There he is, spread eagle, fully geared, arms out while being screened, and for some reason the M-16 he was holding kept making that darned wand go nuts. But you know what? I feel safer to this day that that screener never found an ounce of C4 on the poor guy. Yes this really happened. Yes I laughed just like you are.