[Brooklyn Kid]

How does the screener know whether the soldier is a real soldier? Is there a fail-safe method to ID men & women in uniform?

[yobid]

Name, rank and serial number?

[Centurion2000]

Is there a fail-safe method to ID men & women in uniform?

It's called a military ID card.

[quikdrw]

Yes, there is. Does the solder have a vaild military ID? Or vailid orders?

[boxerblues]

How does the screener know whether the soldier is a real soldier?

The screeners first clue should of been the fact that 50 were traveling together. They all carry Military ID's and leave papers. Both of my sons attracted the attention of some TSA screeners and were pulled aside, nice guys that they were broke wind when bending down to unlace their boots :)

[M1Tanker]

First, all of this information is not only open source, but activly distributed so others know how to spot a fake military ID. That said.

There are methods that are very unlikely to fail. Nothing is "failsafe", but the lengths terrorists (or their allies) would have to go through and the support required from moles within the DOD to make the system fail would be monumental. If a coordinated act of treason of that magnitude happened, a crashing/bombed airliner would be the very least of our worries. How? Why sneak fake soldiers on airliners when you can get launch codes for ICBMs?

Running our ID card is a failsafe. Arriving in mass with units should be a fail safe (this is easily coordinated ahead of time with the anti-terrorism/movement officers and the TSA). Also, units coming from Iraq have already gone through checks. US military officers are held accountable for their units (and the weird stuff I've been yelled at for could fill volumes). Once we and the unit transportation officer clear the soldiers for flight, we should be cleared for the trip.

Soldiers moving alone (R&R leave, etc) have little choice. If the airport has a USO or military assistance area, then the checks could be done there and we could move faster. Not much of a concession.

My beef is why single soldiers out like this? The military ID card, orders, and the fact that very little training on TSA's part could fix this, hit's my "this is wrong" button. Is there an internal political issue at the TSA? If there is, then the TSA needs another shake-up. All of our SSNs and the new CAC cards are on a database and are easily referenced. If someone steals our ID, the CAC card and a service photo from our ORB/ERB would be enough to give the person away. Also, a few simple military specific questions would throw most potential terrorists off. I have to use my military ID card to interface with any governmental organization. This is not rocket science. Why is interfacing with the TSA any different?

Would this have stopped SGT Ackbar? No. Dedicated traitors are difficult to stop. Note that he traveled with his unit. If he did act out on the flight, 45+ other soldiers would stomp him. But out of a military of over a million, exactly how many have "snapped" in recent memory???

[SampleMan]

How does the screener know whether the soldier is a real soldier? Is there a fail-safe method to ID men & women in uniform?

Nothing is fail-safe, but there should be two big indicators, a military ID and an official U.S. passport. If they are flying commercial they should have the latter.