Army coming home(TSA story on FB)
 

Gotta love this.
Link should work
from http://www.facebook.com/usawtfm

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...type=1&theater

copy & paste for those who do not have FB


As the Chalk Leader for my flight home from Afghanistan, I witnessed the following:

When we were on our way back from Afghanistan, we flew out of Baghram Air Field. We went through customs at BAF, full body scanners (no groping), had all of our bags searched, the whole nine yards. Our first stop was Shannon, Ireland to refuel. After that, we had to stop at Indianapolis, Indiana to drop off about 100 folks from the Indiana National Guard. That's where the stupid started.
First, everyone was forced to get off the plane-even though the plane wasn't refueling again. All 330 people got off that plane, rather than let the 100 people from the ING get off. We were filed from the plane to a holding area. No vending machines, no means of escape. Only a male/female latrine.

It's probably important to mention that we were ALL carrying weapons. Everyone was carrying an M4 Carbine (rifle) and some, like me, were also carrying an M9 pistol. Oh, and our gunners had M-240B machine guns. Of course, the weapons weren't loaded. And we had been cleared of all ammo well before we even got to customs at Baghram, then AGAIN at customs.

The TSA personnel at the airport seriously considered making us unload all of the baggage from the SECURE cargo hold to have it re-inspected. Keep in mind, this cargo had been unpacked, inspected piece by piece by U.S. Customs officials, resealed and had bomb-sniffing dogs give it a one-hour run through. After two hours of sitting in this holding area, the TSA decided not to re-inspect our Cargo-just to inspect us again: Soldiers on the way home from war, who had already been inspected, re-inspected and kept in a SECURE holding area for 2 hours. Ok, whatever. So we lined up to go through security AGAIN.

This is probably another good time to remind you all that all of us were carrying actual assault rifles, and some of us were also carrying pistols.

So we're in line, going through one at a time. One of our Soldiers had his Gerber multi-tool. TSA confiscated it. Kind of ridiculous, but it gets better. A few minutes later, a guy empties his pockets and has a pair of nail clippers. Nail clippers. TSA informs the Soldier that they're going to confiscate his nail clippers.

The conversation went something like this:
TSA Guy: You can't take those on the plane.
Soldier: What? I've had them since we left country.
TSA Guy: You're not suppose to have them.
Soldier: Why?
TSA Guy: They can be used as a weapon.
Soldier: [touches butt stock of the rifle] But this actually is a weapon. And I'm allowed to take it on.
TSA Guy: Yeah but you can't use it to take over the plane. You don't have bullets.
Soldier: And I can take over the plane with nail clippers?
TSA Guy: [awkward silence]
Me: Dude, just give him your F**K**G nail clippers so we can get the F**K out of here. I'll buy you a new set.
Soldier: [hands nail clippers to TSA guy, makes it through security]

To top it off, the TSA demanded we all be swabbed for "explosive residue" detection. Everyone failed, [go figure, we just came home from a war zone], because we tested positive for "Gun Powder Residue". Who the Hell is hiring these people?

This might be a good time to remind everyone that approximately 233 people re-boarded that plane with assault rifles, pistols, and machine guns-but nothing that could have been used as a weapon.

Can someone please tell me What the hell happened to OUR country while we were gone?
Sgt. Mad Dog Tracy — with Transportation Security Agency and Suki French
__________________

Sadly that just does not surprise me one bit. Too many sheeple in this country... too busy following SOP instead of using the brain.

The TSA has a place and purpose, but I have to wonder if they know what it is. In my travels as a pilot I've run into this kind of thing time and time again. I even had a TSA employee tell me I wasn't allowed into the terminal due to the fact that I didn't fly for the airline that used it. I was jump seating home. He was pretty quick to threaten me with an arrest. It wasn't until the supervisor arrived (at my request) that the situation was corrected. The TSA agent simply did not know the rules. I've found this to be more common than not. Really makes me miss hauling cargo.

I'm all about safety and protecting the traveling public. The TSA has an important job. They just need a lot more education on what the rules are and when and how to apply them.

Same story on both my prior deployments, and I don't expect any different when I come home from this one. They make us go through customs with our Classified cases and ask us "whats in the case", to which we reply " we can't tell you", then they say "open it", and we say "no". Then they say, "How do we know your not smuggling in something", and we say "You don't, so searching us is kinda pointless isn't it". Some of them are not so bright, and all any of us wanna do is go see our family, who is usually waiting within eyesight that we haven't seen in months, sometimes a year. The last thing we care about is you looking for drugs/alcohol that none of us have or care about having.

Thanks for all you do! :cheers:

Process junkies
 

Spent fifteen minutes with a pair of tweezers pulling some errant grass seeds from my chest rig going through customs. They were so hung up on the grass seed crossing the border but failed to pick up on the clip of 9mm that went through x -ray. Then got hassled over the positive explo swab. Just rolled my eyes at him. Took some explaining that I had been carrying this stuff around for six months round the clock and it was highly likely it would be present. Sigh......