Military advisers to the article were Private Joke, Captain Obvious and General Knowledge...
This is not new.
It happened several years ago and really screwed up a flight schedule for a few hundred people. Thre was even a thread here on FR about it.
A soldier would instantly look and say, “inert”, sure.
But a TSA guy would find one and it looks and feels like a grenade, and a screener wouldn’t notice or know the purpose of the hole in the bottom. What to do?
So, then, everybody can claim the think that looks and feels like an explosive device is “just inert” and there ya go.
“At TSA, we salute the men and women of our armed forces and thank them for their service to our country,” Gaches said in a prepared statement. “We always look forward to partnering with our servicemembers during the security screening process as we strive to achieve our mutual mission of protecting our homeland.”
The TSA is a joke, their “partnering with our servicemembers” only extends to the extra security the many servicemember must endure when traveling, servicemembers make up a high percentage of TSA extra screening because TSA knows servicemembers would complain about it.
Given the choice of a military member or a person of middle-eastern descent the average TSA screener will pick the military member for extra screening.
TSA’s screening numbers stay high and complants stay low.
It may be an over statement of the obvious but apparently it occurs with enough regularity that the obvious horse needs another flogging
I remember coming through Okinawa and they had a big
board with confiscated items posted.
You might not think a guy would need a Claymore or
handgranate at home but then maybe he lived in Detroit.
Things were a lot easier in the 60’s could have taken
a lot more home. Had a swell AR15 cut down into a
pistol, should have broken it down and mailed it.
Had a friend buy a brick of hash in Thailand, he just
wrapped it up in brown paper and sent it to his mother.
“Do not open til I get home!”
Can’t certain classes of explosives be carried on commercial flights? C4? These are used in explosive releases.
Back in April, 1971, I took advantage of a new leave program. This was separate from the standard R&R and was a 14-day leave to the land of the Big PX. You left on a commercial charter from the civilian side of Than Son Nhut airport, not a military aircraft or military charter.
My scheduled departure was delayed by an operation on the Laotian border, so the Squadron Commander sent an aircraft to pick me up and fly me directly to Than Son Nhut. When we got there, I turned my CAR-15 and .45 over to the crew and hopped off with my rucksack. I was half way to the ops building when I remembered what was in my ruck - ammo, mini-frags, mini-smokes, C-4, two claymores, signal flares. I went back to the bird and unloaded all of that stuff. No one ever checked from that point until we landed in Dallas. Customs could have checked, but since I hadn’t bathed in over 14 days, I don’t think they were inclined to do so.