Despite the fact that contemporary acts of terrorism are committed almost exclusively by Muslims, our government refuses to take the reasonable step of subjecting every Muslim to special scrutiny while flying.

There is, however, another group that gets singled out for searches -- and you will be outraged.

A little-known fact about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is that the U.S. military requires soldiers to travel in uniform from theater. An even lesser known fact is that the Transportation Security Administration aggressively targets war veterans as they travel home to their loved ones.

At Baltimore's airport on my way back to Orlando from Iraq, there were about 50 soldiers in line, waiting to be cleared by TSA. I noticed soldiers taking off clothing, and then they assumed the position so commonly seen in police-chase videos, arms and legs spread wide as a screener passed a wand close to their bodies. Soldiers were asked to remove belts, boots and shirts, and their carry-on bags were ransacked.

"We're fighting a war. Do you guys think we're a threat?" I asked as I spread my legs and arms.

The screener replied, "I dunno," and kept his wand in motion.

Before long my leave was completed and I was at Orlando International Airport, standing in line, waiting to clear security again. This time my wife accompanied me through the checkpoint so we could spend every last minute together before I returned to Iraq.

I wore my desert uniform, and as I approached the gate, a TSA screener directed my wife and me to additional screening after my bag had been inspected and scanned. My wife was searched, making an already miserable event, my leaving for war a second time, even worse than the first time.

Travelers shook their heads in disgust. One man glared incredulously at the screeners and said, "Unbelievable."

I was humiliated, not because I was being searched, but because I was being searched while wearing the cloth of the nation -- a U.S. military uniform. While wearing the flag of our nation on my sleeve, enroute to fight a war to support my government's interests, I was categorized as suspicious.

The same government that employs both the TSA and U.S. Army sent me a contradicting message. It trusted me enough to train me, give me a weapon and send me to do its dirty work, but it didn't trust me enough to fly on commercial airplanes with other citizens without close scrutiny.

That's right -- damn near every Mohammad, Abdul, and Osama can get through the screening checkpoint without extra scrutiny by the screeners, because of concerns about profiling based upon race, ethnicity, or religion. On the other hand, American soldirs in uniform, traveling on military orders, are specially searched with frightening regularity.

Including these soldiers.

Since then I've been further dismayed to learn the TSA doesn't even exempt severely wounded war veterans. According to the TSA, it tries to gracefully screen soldiers wounded in battle by making sure security screening is conducted "with empathy and respect."

"We want to make sure the overall experience for the service member is as expeditious and pleasant," as possible, the TSA Web site states.

Odds are wounded soldiers will set off metal detectors, but the TSA won't find weapons intended for use in hijackings. Instead, the TSA will learn their detectors were set off by the shrapnel still embedded in the soldiers' bodies, or the metal components of prosthetics, or plates that now hold service members' bodies together.

Welcome home. Thanks for your service.

Incredible!

H/T Stop the ACLU, CanÂ’t Keep Quiet!, Bring It On!

Posted by: Greg at 01:22 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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