Since I'm about to get on an airplane - I found this story of interest:
The Transportation Security Administration bagged a terrorist in Los Angeles International Airport Tuesday, or so they thought. Daniel Brown's name came up on their no-fly watchlist, so they dragged him into interrogation and grilled him, despite the protestations of Brown and his fellow travelers, who swore they could vouch for him.
Yep. The bureaucrats of the TSA (and I'm a former government employee who still gets a check from the government, I'm inclined to offer the benefit of the doubt - but I've had better interactions with the IRS and VA than I have TSA...) kept us safe - by holding up (and, since he's on the no-fly list, by implication, saying he can *never* fly) Staff Sergeant Daniel Brown, USMCR. The flight they stopped him on?
His return home to Minnesota with his Reserve MP unit. From 8 months in Iraq.
Mind you - he had orders, ID card, and was traveling *with* his unit. The story doesn't say - but I'm betting he was in uniform, too.
Y'know, I don't mind a little zealousness. I really don't. What drives me to distraction is mindless adherence to guidelines as an excuse for the avoidance of a tenth-of-a-degree temperature rise in their cranial cavity caused by a little rational analysis and decision-making. It just drives me crazy when confronted with full-of-their-power drones who fail to avail themselves of the joys of synaptic activity.
So, how did Staff Sergeant Brown find himself on the list? On his previous flight *out* to Iraq, he was discovered to have gunpowder residue on his... wait for it... combat boots. You know, those things we wear to the range when qualifying before we... deploy. To a combat zone. But hey, I guess he can leave, we'll just make sure he can't come back. Good grief. Here's a tack the Brady Campaign can use to harass gun owners. Get 'em on the no-fly list because they... use their legitimately-owned implements. But I digress.
Yet another story of mulish government employees not properly trained, equipped, and supervised (since the supervision suffers the same deficits, that's not likely to offer much improvement anyway) isn't really a story, is it?
This is.
Ultimately, the TSA screeners figured out that Brown really was a Marine, and no threat to his fellow passengers, and let him board a later flight. When he deplaned at MSP, his unit's bus was waiting -- his fellow Marines in it.Marine 1st Sgt. Drew Benson explained why. "We don't leave anybody behind. We start together, and we finish together." All 26 Marines waited for Brown -- even though their families were waiting for them at a scheduled welcome-home bash at Fort Snelling.
Brown's mother Terry was glad they did. "They all come back together... no matter what it takes and I think that's very important," she told WCCO-TV.
Good on 'em. Hand Salute to 1SG Benson and his Marines. Semper Fi!
The whole, sad story is here, with a tip of the hat to one of the people who feeds my habit, John S.
12 Comments