Give troops a pass on airport security lines

WASHINGTON --?

With the holiday season upon us, many Americans are traveling through crowded airports. For our servicemen and women who are deployed overseas, reuniting with loved ones for the holidays likely has been their first thought each morning and the last thought each night. Many of these troops are traveling to or from multiple deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As I travel back and forth from Texas to Washington, I have seen our military men and women in uniform waiting patiently in long airport security lines, watching as they must remove their combat boots, worn on the front lines of Afghanistan.

I think the vast majority of Americans would agree that our military men and women make sacrifices for our nation every day. The least we can do is make their lives - and the lives of their family members - easier when they travel on official orders around the country they defend. Our nation's military have earned the right from a grateful nation to go to the front of the line.

That's why I introduced The Trust Our Troops Act, a bill that requires the Transportation Security Administration to work with the Department of Defense to develop a program to expedite security screening procedures for our military personnel and their families who accompany them.

After I spoke on the floor of the Senate about this legislation, I was stopped in the hall by a young man who just happened to be in the Senate Gallery that evening during my remarks. As an Army Special Forces sergeant, he told me about his own experience at airport screening while in uniform carrying a military radio as part of official courier duty between bases. TSA agents took his radio apart to test for explosives. Such examples occur every day to our men and women in uniform at airports across our nation. That's what drove me to introduce this legislation.

The Trust Our Troops Act has bipartisan support and is co-sponsored by Sens. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and Richard Burr, R-N.C. It passed the Senate unanimously. The House of Representatives is expected to pass our legislation soon.

And although the bill will not affect this year's holiday travel season, it will require the TSA and Defense Department to work together to implement a more common-sense process for military personnel's travel.

Members of our military and their families, traveling on orders and in uniform, will benefit from these new rules. It will also expedite the process for all air travelers.

In a time of increasing fiscal constraints, the establishment of procedures to expedite the screening of a pool of travelers who are certainly our most "trusted travelers" will better allow TSA to focus its attention on areas of real threat.

More than 1.4 million brave men and women comprise our nation's armed forces. While many of these servicemen and women will be traveling through our airports over the next few weeks for long-awaited reunions with their families, still many others will be deployed in harm's way during the holidays. We are grateful to each of them as we enjoy our time with our loved ones at this special time of year.

Source: http://www.heraldonline.com/2011/12/19/3608382/give-troops-a-pass-on-airport.html

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