Only in Amerika - Chapter 6

“I couldn't let this one pass.


US WWII HERO General Hassled
At Airport Over His Medal Of Honor
By Joyce Howard Price
The Washington Times
1-20-1


Airline security personnel at Phoenix's international airport questioned a retired general and war hero about the Medal of Honor he was carrying before he boarded a flight to Washington, D.C.

"They just didn't know what it was but they acted like I shouldn't be carrying it on," retired Marine Corps Gen. Joseph J. Foss of Scottsdale, Ariz., said yesterday in a telephone interview.

"I kept explaining that it was the highest medal you can receive from the military in this country, but nobody listened," he said.

Gen. Foss, an 86-year-old former South Dakota governor whose resume also includes stints as president of the National Rifle Association and as commissioner of the old American Football League, said he was "hassled" about the medal by two separate security crews at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix. He was trying to board an America West airliner Jan. 11 to attend an NRA meeting in Arlington.

"I received the medal in 1943 from President Franklin Roosevelt," after shooting down 26 enemy planes in the Pacific, said Gen. Foss, who was a Marine fighter pilot during World War II.

"It states all that stuff on the back of the medal," he said.

"I was held up for 45 minutes, while they decided what to do about the medal. I almost missed my flight, as they went back and forth," Gen. Foss said.

He stressed that he would not have boarded the plane if he had been stopped from taking the medal aboard. "I'm one of only about 140 surviving Medal of Honor recipients," he said.

Gen. Foss acknowledges that a commemorative metal nail file - also bearing a Medal of Honor inscription - and a dummy bullet were also in the same pocket of his sports coat as the military medal. Those items were seized before he boarded the plane, but he was allowed to keep the Medal of Honor.

Metal nail files and other instruments with blades are prohibited from aircraft cabins under Federal Aviation Administration regulations that went into effect after the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Bullets and other ammunition are not permitted on an aircraft in a passenger's possession. However, the bullet taken from Gen. Foss was harmless, as it has a hole in it so that it will fit on a key chain.

An FAA spokesman was unable to say whether a dummy bullet would be banned under the federal regulations. But he pointed out that airlines are allowed to impose restrictions that go beyond those of the federal agency.

Gen. Foss said he normally doesn't travel with his medal. "I do not carry the medal around with me. But I had it with me this time to show to cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point," where he was a guest speaker last week.

Patty Nowack, spokeswoman for America West, said she could not respond to specific questions about the Foss case, as she cannot verify he flew on the airline. She could not say whether there would be any security concerns about a medal but that it would cause a metal detector to go off.

"Our primary objective is to ensure the safety and security of all passengers and employees. We're not trying to single out any individual," she said yesterday.

Gen. Foss says he believes his one-way, first-class ticket, coupled with the 10-gallon hat and western boots he was wearing, made him seem suspicious to security personnel.

Because he wears a pacemaker, he said he couldn't go through a metal detector and so he had to be "frisked" by guards. Also, Gen. Foss said, "I had to take off my cowboy boots three times [before boarding], as well as my belt and necktie. I compared the situation to bailing out to land in a foreign country."

He said security personnel went so far as to remove razor blades from his luggage, which also went beyond FAA requirements.

Jim Baker, chief lobbyist for the NRA, said he understands the need for "extra security." But he questions how an 86-year-old man bearing the Medal of Honor could be considered a security risk.

"There appears to be a need to incorporate common sense" with the additional security that's being imposed, Mr. Baker said.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020119-79003878.htm”

“Dammed 80 year medal threatening maniacs, yeh take em down thats what I say.”

“Stupidity knows no boundaries.”

“Well look who's manning those security check points at the airport. The only other career choice most of these people would have would be underneath the Golden Arches.”

“The Nailfile of Honor?

The whole thing is nutty, but the geezer had to have a screw loose trying to get on a plane with the file and the dummy bullet.

And of course some lobbiest/scuz from the NRA has to get into the act...”

“From tweezers to ski poles, an airport collection mounts

January 19, 2002

By CECILIA M. VEGA
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT









In the good old days, tweezers were for tweezing and eyelash curlers were for curling. Razors were for close shaves, hair spray was for primping and pocket knives stayed where they belonged.


Then came 9/11.


Now the once seemingly harmless objects used by Boy Scouts and grandmothers are deemed potentially deadly weapons that could be used in an airplane hijacking.


In the name of security, the nation's airports have collected thousands of pounds of them.


Some airports have figured out what to do with their passengers' personal effects. At Hartsfield Atlanta International, fliers can give airport security $1 and have such valued items as toenail clippers and nail files mailed back to them.


In Miami, it's slightly less cordial. Security guards there ship the goods to a sterilizing plant and then to a local dump.


In the Bay Area, though, officials aren't quite sure what to do with the items they have seized.


Since Sept. 11, San Francisco International Airport has collected about 2,000 pounds of everything from manicure scissors to handcuffs.


After four months of letting the items pile up, it was only recently that airport officials decided to have a salvage company haul the collection away.


"We did destroy it. It got to be too much," airport spokesman Ron Wilson said.


Oakland International Airport's main carrier, Southwest Airlines, still has not decided.


"About two months ago, a nonprofit agency for the homeless called and said they might be interested in them ... but it never materialized. So we don't know what to do," said station manager John Minor. "If you think about it, do you want to use someone's nail clippers? I don't."


The Federal Aviation Administration tightened the reins on what passengers could carry on planes immediately following the terrorist attacks. For a time, restrictions were so strong that eyelash curlers were not allowed on board.


No one was exempt. Even former Gov. Pete Wilson had to hand over a small gold penknife -- a gift from his mother -- while traveling through the San Diego airport.


And for the most part, people didn't mind.


"One lady had tweezers that were an heirloom given by her great-grandmother and she just didn't want to give it up, so she left the line and mailed it back to herself," Ron Wilson said.


Items that passengers still cannot carry include knives, metal scissors, corkscrews, baseball bats, ski poles, golf clubs, hockey sticks and metal nail files.


Eyelash curlers and tweezers officially are allowed, as are nail clippers, disposable razors, syringes with proof of medical need, canes and umbrellas.


But individual airlines contract their own security services and have the authority to confiscate any items they deem potentially dangerous.


At San Francisco, that list is a long one.


"If they're these real sharp-nose tweezers, they won't be allowed on. But if they're the blunt ones, that's OK," Wilson said. "And the other thing we have a hard time getting rid of is hair spray cans that could be used as a flame thrower."


Before it was destroyed, the airport's collection of seized items included miniature toy guns that hang from key chains, cigarette lighters and even a shower head, taken from a man who brought his own when he visited hotels.


At the end of each day, items confiscated at various security checkpoints at San Francisco are dumped into a large locked container. Every few days that container is taken to the airport's sheet metal shop and added to giant debris boxes.


Deciding what to do with 2,000 pounds of random personal items has not been easy.


Wilson first suggested making a collage out of the goods and dedicating it to the Sept. 11 attacks. "We brought this before the art commission in San Francisco, informally, and they weren't interested," he said.”

“Violin, thanks for the link. I have been looking for that pesky little rascal for 4 days now.”

“There's more to the story.............

While the non-citizen, limited English speaking, security guards were performing body cavity searches on the 86 year old Medal of Honor recipient, 3 Al Qaeda members walked through security and boarded the plane, even though each was carrying an RPG and a bandolier of ammunition. When asked why the three 18-40 year old, middle eastern men were not stopped, the head of Sky Harbor security stated that "Under the guidelines from DOT secretary, stopping the three men would have constituted racial profiling." The one positive thing from this story is that while peforming the body cavity searches, the security personnel discovered a suspicious lump in the Medal of Honor winner's rectum. Thought to be a grenade, the suspicious lump turned out to be a previuosly unkown hemorhoid.”