I just got back from my honeymoon with the lovely wife. The wedding went a lot better than I was afraid weddings were supposed to go. GI Joes on the wedding cake (which were later put in compromising positions), and a keg of Sam Adams made it a pretty decent event. The bachelor party on the other hand was an event to behold.
So I’m going through airport security on the first leg of our honeymoon and I place my carry-on on the x-ray belt. It is stopped and I am ordered to have a seat. My wife informs the TSA guy that he doesn’t have to be rude to which she is told to, “shut [her] mouth.”
It appears that I had a full magazine in a small pouch. I kinda laugh realizing that I’m a dumbass. I had been tackled in the bathroom the morning of my bachelor party and didn’t get to properly check my pack. I apologize and tell him it’s an accident.
Multiple times during this “interrogation” I have to inform the TSA agent that he is the only person who has been rude or raised their voice when I am told to shut up when asking questions. My wife was repeatedly told to shut her mouth when asking me or him questions.
The TSA agent informs me that he is writing up a report about me that is going to DHS in a permanent file on me. He then threatens me, saying that my attitude and the tenor of our encounter would reflect how he wrote his report. He said he could either make the presence of the magazine sound like an accident or like an intentional incident and began to throw around words like felony, prison time, ect.
I asked him for a copy of the report and was denied. I asked him to speak to a supervisor and was denied. I then told him that I intended to write my congressmen and needed his name. He pointed to his first name on a badge with it and 5 numbers and said, “That’s all you are going to get.”
My wife of 20 hours is at this time crying heavily. We went through a little more sparring before she asked me to just get us out of there, so I finally complied. There’s actually a hell of a lot more to it, but this post is getting long.
It was really insane. I actually stayed calm with the whole scenario until I was threatened, then telling him I was a fucking veteran and didn’t deserve the treatment. I regret it, not for losing my bearing but because a vet doesn’t deserve to be treated any different from a citizen and neither should be treated like a felon.
I am starting to figure out that the only way to swallow a bitter pill is with a candy coating. I think that’s why in the places where we deal with gestapo, you see the most American flags. Those checkpoints are inundated with them. When those ask why I believe what I believe, these experiences are the answer. There is certainly no question where these people stand on the good guy/bad guy scale.
mike
