TSA Confiscates Nail Clippers From Soldiers Returning From Afghanistan

Big Government.com
A friend of mine sent me this about his TSA experience. He, unlike most of us, was coming back into the country from Afghanistan on a military charter
As the Chalk Leader for my flight home from Afghanistan, I witnessed the following:
When we were on our way back from Afghanistan, we flew out of Baghram Air Field. We went through customs at BAF, full body scanners (no groping), had all of our bags searched, the whole nine yards.
Our first stop was Shannon, Ireland to refuel. After that, we had to stop at Indianapolis, Indiana to drop off about 100 folks from the Indiana National Guard. That’s where the stupid started.
First, everyone was forced to get off the plane–even though the plane wasn’t refueling again. All 330 people got off that plane, rather than let the 100 people from the ING get off. We were filed from the plane to a holding area. No vending machines, no means of escape. Only a male/female latrine.
It’s probably important to mention that we were ALL carrying weapons. Everyone was carrying an M4 Carbine (rifle) and some, like me, were also carrying an M9 pistol. Oh, and our gunners had M-240B machine guns. Of course, the weapons weren’t loaded. And we had been cleared of all ammo well before we even got to customs at Baghram, then AGAIN at customs.
The TSA personnel at the airport seriously considered making us unload all of the baggage from the SECURE cargo hold to have it reinspected. Keep in mind, this cargo had been unpacked, inspected piece by piece by U.S. Customs officials, resealed and had bomb-sniffing dogs give it a one-hour run through. After two hours of sitting in this holding area, the TSA decided not to reinspect our Cargo–just to inspect us again: Soldiers on the way home from war, who had already been inspected, reinspected and kept in a SECURE holding area for 2 hours. Ok, whatever. So we lined up to go through security AGAIN.
This is probably another good time to remind you all that all of us were carrying actual assault rifles, and some of us were also carrying pistols.
So we’re in line, going through one at a time. One of our Soldiers had his Gerber multi-tool. TSA confiscated it. Kind of ridiculous, but it gets better. A few minutes later, a guy empties his pockets and has a pair of nail clippers. Nail clippers. TSA informs the Soldier that they’re going to confiscate his nail clippers. The conversation went something like this:
TSA Guy: You can’t take those on the plane.
Soldier: What? I’ve had them since we left country.
TSA Guy: You’re not suppose to have them.
Soldier: Why?
TSA Guy: They can be used as a weapon.
Soldier: [touches butt stock of the rifle] But this actually is a weapon. And I’m allowed to take it on.
TSA Guy: Yeah but you can’t use it to take over the plane. You don’t have bullets.
Soldier: And I can take over the plane with nail clippers?
TSA Guy: [awkward silence]
Me: Dude, just give him your damn nail clippers so we can get the f**k out of here. I’ll buy you a new set.
Soldier: [hands nail clippers to TSA guy, makes it through security]
This might be a good time to remind everyone that approximately 233 people re-boarded that plane with assault rifles, pistols, and machine guns–but nothing that could have been used as a weapon.

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Wild Thing’s comment……..
To Janet Napilitano, our military returning and vets are the real enemy and terrorists. it’s not supposed to make sense, just control. Rush Limbaugh talked about it too…..Rush: Obama groping flyers to punish them for voting GOP – ‘This is all about control….”Republicans enjoyed a tidal wave of success earlier this month, taking control of the U.S. House of Representatives, winning six U.S. Senate seats and seven governorships. That doesn’t include a record 680 seats going to Republicans in state legislatures, and 19 legislatures switching from Democrat to GOP control. Limbaugh says it’s because of that political tsunami that Americans are now being subject to radiation scanning that turns flyers into nude avatars, and those who refuse the scan become subjects of patdown searches that involve touching the genitals of men, women and children.

“The American people are the ones who are guilty. The American people are the suspects. The American people are the ones who need to be controlled. Now this is not gonna be contained at airports, folks. Obama and the Department of Homeland Security are promising to start searching subways and buses and trains and people on them.

“And these are the same people trying to force everybody into public transportation. These are liberals. None of this is accidental. None of this is for the betterment of anybody but them. This is all about control and illustrating power to control. That’s what this. And when they say, ‘If you don’t like being patted down, don’t fly,’ remember that’s your government talking to you.”

Limbaugh called Americans’ backlash against the heightened measures “a miniature revolt,” and said, “There’s a simple way to stop this stuff. It’s called profiling. We’re not doing what’s simple here. The solutions are simple, they’re just hard for some people to stomach.”

These Heroes should have been shown respect and they should have been honored.
OBAMA is in charge of the TSA, this is OBAMA’s mess!
This part did have me laughing though at how stupid the TSA are. Gotta love this conversation.
TSA Guy: You can’t take those on the plane (nail clippers).
Soldier: What? I’ve had them since we left country.
TSA Guy: You’re not suppose to have them.
Soldier: Why?
TSA Guy: They can be used as a weapon.
Soldier: [touches butt stock of the rifle] But this actually is a weapon. And I’m allowed to take it on.
TSA Guy: Yeah but you can’t use it to take over the plane. You don’t have bullets.
Soldier: And I can take over the plane with nail clippers?
TSA Guy: [awkward silence]
Me: Dude, just give him your damn nail clippers so we can get the f**k out of here. I’ll buy you a new set.
Soldier: [hands nail clippers to TSA guy, makes it through security]