Yes, military personnel boarding flights have to go through Transportation Security Administration/TSA checkpoints before a flight. Kind of funny, considering, and I’ve even taken a few flights where we went through the TSA checkpoints, X-ray machines and all… with our issued weapons. Going through airport security with a military grade M16 (they were M16s at the time; never had to do this with an M4) is a silly experience.

The TSA agents were locally hired civilian contractors with some US citizen supervisors on overseas rotations as Federal civilian employees (or so I was told, anyway). They weren’t exactly “military TSA” (there is no such separate agency, it’s all TSA) but they have training for handling military transport situations as needed. Rotations through Kosovo are pretty frequent.

And they were so slow! Wow, it was an exercise in chaos. We’d already been up most of the night to begin with (not sure why) and they just could not get things to happen in a smooth and efficient manner. None of were carrying anything unusual; we didn’t have weapons with us at all and there were a few “secret squirrel” things they were few and ordinary stuff for any Battalion rotating through– nothing should have been a surprise.

The majority of us had some sort of “tactical” color backpack or knapsack. We could have civilian bags if we wanted, but they were “encouraged” to be somewhat neutral or earth-tone colors– ie, no fluorescent pink Hello Kitty backpacks if it could be avoided. Since most of us needed our backpacks more for military movement, and we weren’t interested in going into town with backpacks in general (regardless of color), most people just took the path of least resistance and got personal backpacks that were appropriate to wear with uniforms. Still, there were a few reds and bright greens here and there.

I strongly suspect that if you are naughty and go to Hell when you die, you have to go through military-style TSA to get in. That in itself is worth it to live a clean life.