Those of you on this board know that I'm pretty much a "live-and-let-live" "take-it-in-stride" kind of guy, but I have an issue I'd like to ask your opinion on.

My wife and I just moved to Belgium for an 18-month overseas assignment, arriving here yesterday morning from the states. When we opened our bags here however, we found that several of the suitcases were quite wet with almost all contents very damp. Presumably the bags were left exposed with the weather through O'Hare yesterday (rain was fairly solid at one point when we were in the C club) and as a result, some of our clothes are ruined.

Now, I understand that this could be a "stuff happens, deal with it" situation, but I am wondering if I have any recourse. When I say "ruined", I'm not being dramatic; I'm talking about dress shirts and polos with clear stains where other clothes presumably bled into them. And this is apart from the fact that everything in these bags is damp, including books, suits, and other things where the level of damage fortunately appears to be only negligible at this point.

Thoughts?