I have always had to take off my boots in uniform. I expressed discontent about this once and the guy said something to the effect of "what about your boy McVeigh?" to which he then had an O5 and a SGM yelling at him telling him McVeigh wasn't "our boy" and he wasn't in uniform. This was when I was a scrub, and the TSA wasn't nearly as fascistic.....

Of course, in his defense, a couple of years later there would be that incident in Ft Hood.....

We also did a stop once as a small group last year coming in from Afghanistan where we had to change planes. We had long since turned in weapons, but I still had a holster. Let me tell you about all hell breaking loose when he asked and I told him that 20 hours earlier I was in a combat zone. The supervisor scolded me for not taking it off, and I pointed out that I had no bag (hence the beard and the smell) and no where to put it, and I wasn't going to throw it away because I planned on using it again when I went back to war 3 months later. Why I didn't have a bag is an entirely different story, but as you may know, not having luggage is a red flag as well. It eventually sorted itself out when they tired of my smart ass answers and I casually informed them the whole incident had been recorded. We should have never had to go back through TSA anyway as we were just changing planes. It was like they targeted us precisely because we were military

I havent been on a commercial flight in well over a year now, but I hear they are killing the boot thing.

They need to stop with this quota, by-the-numbers crap and use the system used by Israel, but I will stop there cuz this is the front room.

Ajax you are just lucky your baby wasn't carrying a holster.....