Marines Escorting Fallen Comrade Searched at Airport

[Lowell]

This is our TSA in action. Does this make you feel any more secure?

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-1755845.php

Agreed, the TSA has a very difficult job, but sometimes their actions seem pretty ignorant. It reminds me of the when retired General Joe Foss was stopped in the air port and his Medal of Honor taken from him. The screener claimed it was a throwing star. What boneheads.

Fortunately the three Marines were mature enough to put up with the treatment without getting angry. But while the TSA pulled their searches the Marines were worried about missing the plane and the disposition of their fallen comrade. The CAO should have notified the airport security ahead of time of the burial detail and the TSA should have been aware of this. The TSA screeners were very luck, everybody knows you do not get between a Marine and his mission.

[noamnety]

1. On their way to Gulfport

From escorting a body from Iraq, to getting patted down like criminals while in uniform, to ending up in the still unreconstructed Gulf Coast ... I cannot even imagine how surreal their view of America must have been that day.

[havocmom]

2. Seems too often that people who shouldn't be in positions of authority

gravitate to jobs that give them just enough to abuse. Look for more of this problem as the junta privatizes more and more law enforcement activities in the US with companies like Blackwell. The Brown-shirts ARE coming.

[Coyote_Bandit]

3. Well..........

(1) the nature of their duty in escorting a fallen commrade is such that the TSA should have been notifed in advance of the mission and necessary arrangements made - something which obviously did not happen, and

(2) absent advance arrangements, uniformed military personnel should expect to be subject to the same scrutiny (including searches) by TSA as any other air passenger.

All I see here is a bad situation made worse by bad planning - and there is an implication based on their own statements that these military personnel expected to be treated differently (better) than other air passengers. My guess is that their attitude (as demonstrated by their failure to remove clothing items that obviously would set off the metal detectors) is what prompted all of them to be searched more extensively. Perhaps that search was their wake up call.

[Lowell]

4. Read the article again, the did not refuse to remove their uniforms

when asked the complied with every request the TSA made.

<snip>
But as the Marines went through the initial screener in their dress blues, they were stopped by several TSA agents. Each was told to remove their dress uniform blouse, belt and black dress shoes, which were scanned by the detector, as the agents scanned them with hand-held detecting wands.

"They had me take off my shoes and ran them through the screening," Stock said, speaking by phone May 5 from Gulfport, where the men are helping with Mills' family and funeral support. "We all got searched."

The agents said nothing to explain why all three were singled out for additional search and the Marines didn't protest. "We were just trying to get there as quick as we could," he added.

</snip>

True, the CAO (Casuality Assistance Officer) should have made sure the TSA was aware of the burial detail, there is no indication in the article that they weren't notified prior to the incident. As to the Marines attitude, I don't think it ever crossed their minds that they were better than the other passengers, I think they were fully concentrated on escorting their fallen comrade, Sgt. Lea R. Mills' body to his final resting place.

[Coyote_Bandit]

5. Ummm .... Before your snipped portion the article states

<snip>
While their uniforms likely would trigger the metal detector, they had figured they would be able to zip through the screening process and get on with their business.

“Wearing the blues, the metal detector is going to go off,” said Sgt. John Stock, a mechanic, who was accompanied by Cpls. Aaron Bigalk and Jason Schadeburg.

But as the Marines went through the initial screener in their dress blues, they were stopped by several TSA agents. Each was told to remove their dress uniform blouse, belt and black dress shoes, which were scanned by the detector, as the agents scanned them with hand-held detecting wands.
</snip>


It appears to me that they had reason to know that they would trigger the metal detectors and chose to do so anyway. They complied with TSA requests that were made (removing shoes, etc.) *after* triggering the metal detectors. Complying with TSA requests *after* setting off the metal detector is something quite different from having the foresight and judgment to take necessary action and precautions not to set the thing off in the first place.

I've seen lots of regular folks remove all sorts of clothing items (specifically including shoes, belts and tops with epaulets and other decorative items including metal buttons which might trigger a metal detector) in order to pass through airport security scanners. They remove the items and allow them to pass through the x-ray machine for examination and are able to retrieve them off the end of the x-ray conveyor belt. Folks with the foresight to do this kind of thing avoid the necessity of being pulled aside, wanded and further scrutinized by TSA. Why shouldn't these military folks have expected to conduct themselves in a like manner?

Why would these military folks completely ignore the fact that they would trigger the metal detectors? The two obvious choices are that they expected those military uniforms to get them some preferential treatment or they were just completely ignorant of TSA expectations. Dumb. Either way.

[Recursion]

6. I got stopped in uniform a lot

Though I only flew in my alphas, not in blues. At one point you weren't supposed to fly in uniform but we all kind of ignored that because it's nice to have the flight attendents flirt with you, and they tend to be more lenient about the fact that you may need to change your flight times with little notice.

Anyways, if I were designing a security protocol for an airport, I would probably subject people in uniform to equal if not greater scrutiny than people in civies, since if I were a terrorist wearing a US military uniform is probably exactly the sort of thing I would do to sneak on to a plane.

Note that both "if"s in my case are totally hypothetical.

[ManiacJoe]

7. While the TSA

(nor its previous incarnation as private security) has ever made me feel secure in all my years of plane travel, it is nice to see that some folks like "Coyote_Bandit" and "dmesg" understand how security check-points are supposed to work.

[Buxtehude]

8. It's things like this

that make you realize, we are a lost nation searching for our moral center. When you see things like this you wonder, have the terrorists won?