STOP FLYING! -- TSA Strips Americans of Freedom, Shatters American Dignity and Pride

In addition to social conversations, Facebook features ads. What a surprise, right? They actually want to make money?

Well, one of the ads they are featuring today is the following:

Public Safety Masters

lewisuniversityonline.com

This online Masters is for professionals in the field of law enforcement, emergency medical services, fire services & disaster response.

Now, I don't know, I'm no genius, but I have managed to stay alive through three battlefields, 27 years in the U.S. Marine Corps, 17 years with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers where I went to Iraq for a year as a federal civilian (no weapons allowed), and even survived 10 years as an ordained Christian Pastor.

So, with that meager background, it occurs to me that maybe our Homeland Security people -- through the Transportation Security Administration, TSA -- might want to either hire some bona fide security experts, or send some of their people to this class at Lewis University. Surely at Lewis they are not teaching that before you board an aircraft with Americans presumed to be innocent you should grope their screaming children, handle their "package" between their legs, their breasts, and be sure to hand-check those nuns and 80-year-old anxiety-ridden grandmothers. Or that you need to put them through waves of radiation, but without the protection as they do for clinical x-rays or dental x-rays, so that all their private parts show up on a publicly-viewed screen.

Surely we can do better than that. This is the land of invention and innovation that teaches the rest of the world to sing, to organize, and produce bigger and better. Surely we can do better than that.

But that sense of bewilderment at our morphing stupidity that passes for protecting ourselves is not the real reason I write about this.

The real reason is because of what happened to three United States Marines, in their dress blue uniforms, carrying a ceremonially folded U.S. flag, as they escorted home a brother Marine encased in a casket. The tragic comedy of their treatment reflects on all of us.

There are certain preparations made and adhered to by the U.S. airlines to ensure these deceased American heroes are afforded every courtesy, and every protection, on their way home. And wherever possible, they do as much for those brothers-in-arms escorting home someone's husband, someone's brother, someone's son.

But this incident happened before these three Marines were ever allowed to board the aircraft and, indeed, there was great question whether or not they would even be able to make the flight carrying their fellow Marine.

Here's the news story version of these Marines being strip-searched:

Escorting Marine Strip Searched

By Gidget Fuentes Marine Corps Times staff writer

It wasn't the city of "brotherly love" for a trio of Marine noncommissioned officers escorting the body of a fallen Marine through the Philadelphia airport.

Each decked in their blue dress uniforms, the three enlisted Marines made their way through a security checkpoint at the Philadelphia International Airport about noon on May 3 when they were pulled aside by security workers with the federal Transportation Safety Administration.

The Marines -- a sergeant and two corporals -- were escorting the body of Sgt. Lea R. Mills from Dover Air Force Base, Del., to his family in Gulfport, Miss. Mills, who was married and lived in Oceanside with his wife, was killed in Iraq on April 28 by a roadside bomb. He was one of three Leathernecks killed that day in Iraq's Anbar province.

They were brothers-in-arms. Like Mills, the Marine escorts are members of the Camp Pendleton-based 3rd Assault Amphibian Battalion.

The trio had to go through the terminal's security in order to reach their flight that would take them to Houston and make sure that Mills' body was properly placed on the airplane. While their uniforms likely would trigger the metal detector, they had figured they would be able to zip through the screening process and get on with their business.

"Wearing the blues, the metal detector is going to go off," said Sgt. John Stock, a mechanic, who was accompanied by Cpls. Aaron Bigalk and Jason Schadeburg.

But as the Marines went through the initial screener in their dress blues, they were stopped by several TSA agents. Each was told to remove their dress uniform blouse, belt and black dress shoes, which were scanned by the detector, as the agents scanned them with hand-held detecting wands.

"They had me take off my shoes and ran them through the screening," Stock said, speaking by phone May 5 from Gulfport, where the men are helping with Mills' family and funeral support. "We all got searched."

Then they were taken to a nearby room, where TSA workers patted them down.

At one point, Stock's shoes disappeared, leaving him to frantically search for them and retrieve them from a TSA agent. Separated from their belongings, which included the flag that they bore that would drape Mills' casket for the rest of the journey home, they worried about getting to the gate in time to ensure his safe placement in the airplane.

Time, it seemed like a half-hour, clicked by. "I was like, hey, we need to be on the tarmac," Stock recalled. "It just took longer than it should have had to take."

The agents said nothing to explain why all three were singled out for additional search and the Marines didn't protest. "We were just trying to get there as quick as we could," he added.

In all, it was a humiliating experience that left them angry.

"They could probably tell that I was pissed off," said Stock, who noted that he's never encountered that kind of search when going through airport security in uniform.

"I understand if I was in civilian clothes. But with what we were wearing and what we were doing. ," he said, noting that "we had the flag with us."

A call into TSA's public affairs office in the D.C. area was not returned as of press time.

Now, you don't have to have been an active duty U.S. Marine, as I was, to be disturbed regarding how badly this was handled, and to be concerned that TSA promotes a "siege" mentality where none of us are safe, all of us are suspect, our individual rights are violated as a matter of routine, and we are completely stripped of our dignity as human beings and as members of the most advanced, the greatest nation in the world today. We can do better. And until we do, Americans should not trade their rights and dignity for an airplane flight.

Why Does America's Military Fight?

by Ed Evans, MGySgt., USMC (Ret.)

Recently I posted a video of former President George and Laura Bush meeting members of the American military returning from Afghanistan through the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. The troops didn't know these two private citizens would be there, so it was a complete, and pleasant, surprise. George and Laura greeted them warmly, talked with them, had their pictures taken with the men and their wives, and everyone thoroughly enjoyed it. I noted that this is what a real President does.

One person responded to the video by asking why wouldn't Bush be there to welcome them home, after all, they were there because of him. When I responded that no, they were there because Americans had been murdered by terrorist attacks, and that 911 was just part of that. The response to that was that my words were "poetic and skewed." I confess I never understood the "poetic" part. However, it occurred me that this was not the first person who truly seemed to have misunderstood the danger we were in, how long that danger had been stalking us, and why our military was in Iraq and Afghanistan. And so the following response, posted here rather than targeting the original responder.

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America stands practically alone among nations in having an all-volunteer military. No one is drafted or forced to serve. They volunteer for what lies ahead of them. No one wants to fight, but someone must know how, to preserve the precious light of freedom God has given us. From as far back as 1775 when the U.S. Marine Corps was formed, even before there was a colonial army, American warriors have taken the fight to the enemy. We don't want to have to fight in the streets of New York City or Chicago or L.A. You attack us, we come after you, and we fight on your ground, destroy your cities.

This war we are in began not with 911, but goes back as far as 1984 when Iranian Muslim terrorists killed more than 300 Marines when they crashed a bomb-filled truck into their barracks as they slept in Beirut, Lebanon. I had just left there and was spared, praise God.

I won't give you a history lesson, but America and Americans have been attacked many times since 1984, always by Muslim terrorists, on land, at sea, and in the air. 911 was simply the culmination of that. There is nothing poetic about war. You must go after them and stop them, or your wife, your children, your brothers and sisters, your mother and father, they all become captives to be abused, misused, and murdered. And so you go. This was not George Bush's war, this was America's reaction to the war forced upon it, to protect ourselves, our nation. The entire world needs America to survive. If there were no America, they would have to invent one to provide such humanitarian support, medical technology, labor-saving inventions, and even trained managers.

But you need to understand, as has been said before, that the soldier fights not because of what is in front of him, but because of what he left behind at home. And since we volunteered for the training to do this, we are grateful our leadership supports this fight and allows us to engage this enemy and protect our loved ones, to keep the terror away from them. No, not poetic and not skewed. Straight forward, simple logic.

If you only knew them as I do, having dealt with them first-hand, face to face, and after studying them for years, you would understand better. The soldier is not some ignorant lump who cannot do anything else. He or she is more likely well-educated, sensitive, good citizens. The worst thing about war is we often lose our best and brightest, because they understand best what is at stake. They understand very well, so they go, and they do, and many times we lose them to combat. It then becomes incumbent upon the survivors, the protected, to take their place in society, honor their sacrifice by exercising the very freedoms for which they gave their life away to protect.

War is merely the harshest extension of diplomacy. I often wished our government would field as many diplomats as they do men and women under arms, before the shooting starts. But that option is often removed from us by our enemies.

Perhaps my opening up to you from my heart on this issue will allow you to look through the eyes of the warrior, scarred for life by the blood and gore of taking the lives of persistent enemy, and nearly having your life taken, but all because you chose to be there. You made a conscious decision that it would be you, not your sons or daughters who would stand against the enemies of freedom. And if that gives you just a prescient look inside a warrior's heart, you will gain a sense of why we are appalled when people make such comments as you have made about people such as George Bush. He has been there with us in the maelstrom, held the hands of more sorrowing parents than I hope you will ever know, eaten with us, prayed with us, wept with us.

Maybe, somehow, you will gain an understanding of why I say with Job in chapter 13, verse 15, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust him." Job, of course, was talking about Almighty God. George Bush is merely a man doing his best as God gives him light to see. That's what we did. And between ourselves -- including men I know by name every day, for as long as I live, who stepped into that ring of fire to give their life for you and I -- and those of the Bush administration, we did the best we could as God gave us light to see. Those who are alive today, because of that, those who speak English today instead of Arabic Farsi, or Chinese, or something else, it would be so much more fulfilling to hear a simple "thank you", than to hear the words of our enemies parroted from your mouth, to hear a raging against those who did their best to keep you free. Which you are. But, frankly, not for long when the protected make it their lot in life to criticize, pillory and ridicule those who bought their freedom. For as we go away, and sooner or later everyone goes away, those who should take our place will have been watching, and they will not step into that ring of fire. Then all is lost.

The Marine Who Saluted Rolling Thunder -- the rest of the story

This information came to me originally by email, so I am posting it here below in that format, except that I am suppressing email addresses. If I don't, they seem to wind up on spammers' lists.

You may have seen the video of this Marine in dress blues standing for hours saluting the 3,000 members of Rolling Thunder riding up Constitution Avenue. But here is the rest of the story...

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Gyrene242's News and Views for putting America first.
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The information below about this video is absolutely worth reading, re: Marine SSgt. Tim Chambers.

However, what is not generally known is that these 3,000 patriots from Rolling Thunder are the reason Pres. Obama left town and went to the cemetery outside Chicago, where the God of all Gods saw to it he was greeted by a gale force rainstorm and lightning bolts. At Arlington Cemetery, where he was supposed to be, VP Biden has sunny skies and fair winds as he paid homage to our honored dead.

Every year of his presidency, Pres. Bush met Rolling Thunder's motorcade to D.C. on Memorial Day. Pres. Obama left town so he didn't have to go to Arlington, and didn't have to meet Rolling Thunder.

So this Marine, SSgt. Tim Chambers, would have been doing more than he appears, perhaps more than he knew. He is representing not just all America's patriots, and all of us Marine patriots, he is standing in place for the Chief Executive of this nation; in your face, Mr. President. And Semper Fi Marines, everywhere.

BTW, one of the messages below refers to his command giving him a hard time about his appearance. The way to help him is not to blast his command, but to write to the Commanding General, Marine Corps Base, Camp Pendleton, Calif., and thank him for the outstanding performance by a Marine of his command. Or, you can simply pass on your thanks and your respect to SSgt. Chambers himself. His email is also noted below.

Ed Evans
MGySgt., USMC (Ret.)
Not as lean, not as mean, but still a Marine.
PUT AMERICA FIRST!
Stop being a good Democrat. Stop being a good Republican. Start being a good American.”

In a message dated 6/19/2010 12:50:38 P.M. Central Daylight Time, jkafka52 writes:

Thanks Master Chief Burlage.

-----Original Message-----
From: JBurlage

This comes from Mark Dye, a wonderful friend and retired senior Navy officer. It's in response to my request for more information about the lone Marine's vigil during "Rolling Thunder." I note he's getting flak from his command for taking part in the way he does. Are his superiors nuts or just plain stupid?

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From: mhdye
To: JBurlage
Sent: 6/18/2010 5:53:36 P.M. Central Daylight Time
Subj: "Rolling Thunder," and a Marine's vigil -- and the REST OF THE STORY!

He stands for several long hours - it becomes extremely painful but he doesn’t quit.

He’s been doing this for 6 years now.

SSgt Tim Chambers

May 31, 2010 — A solitary Marine holds vigil at full attention during the Rolling Thunder motorcycle rally in tribute to fallen comrades.

Patti and I rode into Washington DC with Run For The Wall last Friday then rode in Rolling Thunder on Sunday. We met this Marine -- SSgt Tim Chambers and his mom. SSgt Chambers was at our hotel, saluting the veterans riding in from California. We spoke with him for some time. SSgt Chambers is stationed in Camp Pendleton and has been saluting the riders of Rolling Thunder for six years. He pays his own way to DC each Memorial Day weekend but is now getting some harassment from his command for his “saluting”. He can be reached at tim4america at his AOL address. Send him a thank you note, he deserves it!

SSGT Tim Chambers

The Lone Marine

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 29

Thousands of people were lining the streets. It was May 29, Rolling Thunder Sunday in Washington, D.C., and the Run For The Wall was about to start. Impatiently pacing, I was scanning the crowds for one individual in particular, a Marine in full dress uniform. This particular marine had captured my curiosity. For the past several years, I had seen him in his dress uniform standing on the double yellow lines holding a salute for every biker in the Thunder procession. He would stand at attention from start to finish. This was a feat that would last over four hours and display the meaning of intestinal fortitude. I was on a quest to talk to this marine. I had tried in vain calling all the usual suspects from the Marine Corps, but no one knew anything on the subject. Only later did I find out this Marine was a lone wolf, not a sanctioned poster boy for The Corps.

Noon was fast approaching and you could hear the collective roar of bikes getting ready to run their pilgrimage. I took one more long look around the corner of Constitution Avenue and then I saw him. Moving with a half swagger and half march, the marine approached, his family in tow, and he headed toward his appointed spot just shy of the turn onto Constitution. As he walked you could hear the loud shouts of "Semper Fi" which were in turn answered with a guttural "hoorah!" Along the way, he shook hands and stopped often to kneel down and talk to kids. You could feel his energy as he drew nearer and heard him speak. His demeanor was stern, but kind, and when he spoke he looked directly into your eyes. With a firm handshake, he agreed to give me a few minutes at the end of the run after the last bike rolled by. I in turn assured him a cold bottle of water when he was done. I knew he would need it.

A giant rock of a man was assigned to help guide motorcycles to the left and right, a road guard if you will. The marine began to take his position in the center of the street when a young boy wearing a Marine shirt walked up to him and in the blink of an eye, they were doing push-ups in the middle of the road. Suddenly, the call came out that the Run For The Wall was about to start. People were quickly cleared from the street. The roar of machines grew louder and the unrelenting lines of bikes appeared. In one smooth mechanical motion, the lone marine cocked his salute as bikes began to roll by.

The marine is Staff Sergeant Tim Chambers. I spoke to his mom, Diane Desantis, his grandmother Anne Desantis, his girlfriend, Mariam Ebrahimi and his buddy Nathan Linkof. Tim was one of six kids in a very active household. He came from a lineage of military folks as his father was a Marine in Vietnam and his grandfather was in the Coast Guard in World War II. Tim?s family came from the small town of Silverton, Oregon.

Tim spends hundreds of hours helping out various charities, advocates for veterans' benefits and their causes and visits veterans' hospitals. Tim's card explains what he is all about. He is starting a charitable organization called "Tim-for-America" whose centerpiece is, "improving the quality of life of our youth, the less fortunate and heroic veterans." His aim is ambitious, but simple: Get people involved and volunteer to help.

After more than four hours, the last bikes finally came over the bridge and slowed down to pass by Tim. When the last escort motorcycle rode by, Tim cracked his salute in perfect military precision. He did a left face and walked toward his family. The surrounding crowds erupted into applause and people came from everywhere to shake Tim's hand and thank him. He would in turn thank every person for being there. Although sweating, Tim seemed no worse for the wear.

Tim explained that for several years, when he was stationed in D.C., he would wear his uniform during Rolling Thunder and walk around talking to people. He would shake hands and thank veterans and their families. He listened to their stories and their plights. Tim decided that he wanted to do something to show that he cared. He spontaneously, in full uniform, stepped into the road during Rolling Thunder 2002 and gave his salute to the riders in the Run For The Wall. The next couple of years his spontaneous salute evolved in to a planned event. This year, he was invited by The Rolling Thunder organization, which flew his family in from Oregon and Tim from 29 Palms, California.

As I walked away, it struck me that I hadn't asked the most important question. I turned around and called him, "Sergeant Chambers, why the salute?" His response was effortless and profound, "It's about the pain. A lot of these heroic guys still hurt and if I can relieve their pain for just one brief moment, then I've done my job."

Jun 18, 2010 08:21:58 AM, JBurlage wrote:

"Rolling Thunder," and a Marine's vigil

As happens too often, this comes without explanation. Jan and I are very familiar with "Rolling Thunder," but know nothing of the lone Marine so poignantly pictured. Anyone have more information? I'll pass it along.

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The Master Gunnys Outlook

A Letter for Andrew

The following short message comes from Donna Clemons, President of the Tennessee Marine Family organization, a wonderfully supportive group of mothers, wives, sweethearts, and other family members with Marines in our beloved Marine Corps. I urge you to go to the URL given below and read the letter by lstLt. Andrew Stern, Germantown, Tenn., written to his mother for her surprise birthday party, a letter that later appeared in Newsweek Magazine.
After Donna's message is my comment.

Yesterday, I received an e-mail from a friend that included a link. When I clicked on the link, it was from NEWSWEEK and in an ongoing series, NEWSWEEK is publishing letters and e-mails from fallen U.S. troops in Iraq to loved ones and friends back home. I read the first one and as I was scrolling down, the second letter is from our beloved 1st Lt. Andrew Stern of Germantown, Tennessee. Many of us know Richard and Eileen and have heard their wonderful stories of Andy. This is an incredible story of love from Andy to his mother. The Sterns have four boys. In honor of Eileen's 50th birthday, which was a surprise party ten days before Andy was killed, Richard asked each of the boys to write a letter to mom. Each gave him a great letter but, as always, Andy's was a cut above. Richard read each letter in front of about 20 of their best friends and there wasn't a dry eye in the place after reading Andy's (that he saved for last). Richard says they were all so euphoric and had a great evening, made even better knowing that Andy would be home in a month. You know the rest.Richard said that of the 20 or so letters they gave to Newsweek, this was the best. Richard went on to say, "And, now, the world will know how much Andy loved his Mom and this letter will be in the public domain forever. This makes me very, very happy."http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17954574/site/newsweek/

Now my comment.
A friend of mine, Ray Walker, an old Marine Chosin Reservoir veteran, responded to me concerning an opinion piece about the laxity of European threat levels. Ray wrote: “The sad truth is Europe is still in denial. After 1600 or more years of almost constant warfare, their best of the best gene pool is exhausted and all that's left is the cowardly and the ostrich mentality. We, too, have lost more than we can afford of our best in our many wars in the last 200 years. We are now being subjected to the votes of the children of 4Fs, druggies, and deadbeats from the Beat Generation.’
He added, “In a population of almost 300 million, assuming 130 million males 18 and older, I doubt we could raise 5 million who would be moral and patriotic copies of our generations, who could be trusted to do the right thing in adverse circumstances without having to be shamed or drafted to do it.”
My friend may be guilty of oversimplification, but I believe he’s got a point. Those young men whose love of country outweighed their fears put on a uniform and went. Those who did not feel so constrained stayed home, made the laws, made money, and had children. Many of those who went did not come back. We lost who knows how many Nobel Prize winners, how many leaders of our nation, how many who might have found the answers to rampant diseases and the social ills that drag us down this day?
Recently I spent an exorbitant time in front of my television due to an illness. That week one particular channel was running movies such as “Mr. Roberts,” and “Tora Tora Tora.” There were more of that genre, but I’ll make my point with those two.
It occurred to me that those the nation looks up to today are of the character of the ship’s captain in the movie “Mr. Roberts.” Those of the Mr. Roberts’ character are in uniform, in Iraq, Afghanistan, South Korea, the Philippines, Okinawa, Japan, and aboard the U.S. Naval ships at sea. They make up the wall that tells the world to behave itself, that potential bullies and enemies will get a bloody nose if they cross the line.
But like that posturing, barely military ship’s captain, today we have men and women in positions of power who cut the ground out from under those committed young men and women in uniform. These people would “go easy” on our enemies, those who specifically have targeted us. They would give amnesty to those who break American law and enter the country illegally. They would meet with our enemies in ill-advised counsel, announcing to our enemies that there are gaps in our line, soft spots in our protective wall, ways around the “no-negotiation-with-terrorists” standing of our elected leadership.
Such people are not acting in the mode of Mr. Roberts. They care little for the safety, security or well-being of those in uniform, the cream of America’s youth. For if they did, they would stand united with our President, with those who lead our military forces; they would not be playing footsy with our enemies and those who support them. Those who are digging tunnels under our wall of protection, those who are passing out keys to the gates that keep us safe, those who are assuming the mantel of leadership that doesn’t belong to them, history will judge them to be the Benedict Arnolds, the self-serving weak links that led to the erosion of that once bastion of liberty, America.
The movie “Tora Tora Tora” was the very model of a modern major super power where the ship of state is sabotaged not by deliberate treason but by useful idiots more concerned with their individual welfare than what is about to happen to their nation. It was only the dastardly, backstabbing nature of the Japanese attack that solidified the national response. Natural leaders came to the fore. The young men of America could not get into uniform fast enough. Luckily for America, the enemy also had their useful idiots so America had time to build up, respond in kind, and turn the tide for liberty.
My friend is probably right. Not only would that not happen on the same level now as in World War II, it has not happened. The American people, in spite of the initial outpouring of emotion and outrage over the horrible attack by terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001, have not rushed to man the ramparts. Instead, they have allowed the focus of their outrage to be splintered and fractured by those who would use America’s problems to build their own thrones of power; national self deprecation, immigration, health care, financial mismanagement, homelessness, crime, and on and on.
Indeed, why this loss of focus? Maybe my friend is right when he suggests, “We are now being subjected to the votes of the children of 4Fs, druggies, and deadbeats from the Beat Generation.”
I am 66 years old. I remember with extreme clarity the rugged individualism for which Americans were once known. Out of that sense of self security and confidence came strong opinions and decisions. Now we need a group to gain consensus. We have lost the experiential knowledge that a camel is a horse put together by committee.
But that’s not why I write this. That merely shines a light on what I believe everyone knows but doesn’t want to admit. None dare call it treason.
No, I write because as a man who wore America’s military uniform for 27 years, with a wife who wore her nation’s uniform, a man with two sons who wore military uniforms – one is still in uniform – I have a special place in my heart for those who stand on that wall at night saying, “Not on my watch.” They deserve more from us than discordant voices from those who sent them on their mission in the first place.
Read the emails and letters and media quotes from those outstanding representatives of American will and you will see they have a clear vision of what needs to be done in their theater of operations. If the enemy is not stopped there, the enemy will be in America’s streets and backyards and government buildings next. They know they must stop them there. They want to stop them there. They deserve our support.
Our military men and women know what they are doing. They understand the stakes are life and death, not just for them, but life and death for those they love back home. Why do we back home have such a hard time understanding that? How long will we lack the focus to train our national will on the first problem first? The enemy must be stopped. Our military has the weapons and the training and the will to stop them.
Do we here at home?
Because if we do, we need to take charge and tell those stabbing our troops in the back, and those who are products of the “children of 4Fs, druggies, and deadbeats from the Beat Generation,” to shut up and sit down. When will we do that? Out sons and daughters in uniform want to know. They deserve to know! We owe it to the Andrew Sterns who gave us all they have. Take a stand for liberty and freedom. Andrew did.