“It wasn’t the city of “brotherly love” for a trio of Marine noncommissioned officers escorting the body of a fallen Marine through the Philadelphia airport.
TSA detains Marine escorts
Trio escorting body of fallen comrade are stripped of dress blue coats, searched at airport
Each decked in their blue dress uniforms, the three enlisted Marines made their way through a security checkpoint at the Philadelphia International Airport about noon on May 3 when they were pulled aside by security workers with the federal Transportation Safety Administration.
The Marines — a sergeant and two corporals — were escorting the body of Sgt. Lea R. Mills from Dover Air Force Base, Del., to his family in Gulfport, Miss. Mills, who was married and lived in Oceanside with his wife, was killed in Iraq on April 28 by a roadside bomb. He was one of three leathernecks killed that day in Iraq’s Anbar province.

They were brothers-in-arms. Like Mills, the Marine escorts are members of the Camp Pendleton-based 3rd Assault Amphibian Battalion.

The trio had to go through the terminal’s security in order to reach their flight that would take them to Houston and make sure that Mills’ body was properly placed on the airplane. 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.

“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.”

Then they were taken to a nearby room, where TSA workers patted them down.

At one point, Stock’s shoes disappeared, leaving him to frantically search for them and retrieve them from a TSA agent. Separated from their belongings, which included the flag that they bore that would drape Mills’ casket for the rest of the journey home, they worried about getting to the gate in time to ensure his safe placement in the airplane.

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.

In all, it was a humiliating experience that left them angry.

“I understand if I was in civilian clothes. But with what we were wearing and what we were doing … ,” he said, noting that “we had the flag with us.”

A call into TSA’s public affairs office in the D.C. area was not returned as of press time.”

Profiling?
What does it accomplish the Liberals query……
Terrorists routinely slip through immigration and airport checks (remember September 11th anyone?!).. and manage to live, train, and plan terrorist attacks right here in the U.S.

Did y’all know that Al Qa-eda manuals even describe how to blend into society as a “law-abiding” citizen….charming eh?

Concern is justifiably raised of several “groups” of terrorists including sleeper cells, who are just waiting and planning for the order to commit their designated terrorist attack.
These people are of “A-rabic descent. Did that escape TSA?
Um..not American Marines in uniform with our FlaG, but Mu-zlims.
Difficult to differentiate?

What we Do know about profiling (if we profile the correct people, that is..not Irish middle aged women, or Hawaiin teenage boys………..

Intelligence and circumstantial evidence can lead agents to the identification of a likely terrorist, hence airport security.

It does afford us additional tools for fighting even non-terrorism related crimes such as drug trafficking, racketeering, and trafficking of women and children.

Terrorists are put in the position to re-organize and plan around all the new anti-terror methods, which can be expensive and time-consuming, not to mention more difficult.

Millions could be killed if we fail in our efforts to “properly” profile.
Over 3000 people died on Sept. 11. This is a small number compared to the number that could die if a nuclear, chemical, or biological attack was carried out.
And guess what..Terrorists have made no secrets about their desire for such weapons and the implementation thereof.

Instead of playing the PC game of “Let’s have the Marines remove their shoes so as not to draw the slightest amount of criticism from the Muzlims or their best friends, the Liberal left……
Instead of harassing our 300 million citizens of this fine country, and having law enforcement check out and monitor everything about everyone, what do you say we actually monitor the “potential” killers?

Oh, let’s see now…let’s get creative shall we…Hows about monitoring oh lets see….Muz-lims who are originally from a hostile Arab country such as Iran, or Syria?..Or members of militant groups?

Let us be honest for one moment if we can bear it…..Those that are innocent, have nothing to worry about, but
…those who protest the loudest are often those with the most to hide.

The Marines deserve more than an apology.
TSA’s public affairs office in the D.C…pick up the phone next time it rings eh?…Repeat after me: “We offer our deepest, most humble apologies.”..and “What can do for the family of Sgt. Lea R. Mills to show our respect and remorse”?

The Bullwinkle Blog has some interestin readin.
Check out The Uncooperative Blogger for the latest on illegal immigrant..er..invaders.
123 beta has some interestin posts for ya.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 7th, 2006 at 10:21 am and is filed under Politix. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.