Originally Posted by Sneezy
Yeah, it is. Of course, both times it was at Schipol after a hard redeye in Y on NW. And a bit less than ten years ago to boot. So it may not be all that accurate a memory.
Except for the part about Israelis driving on the sidewalks. That's a bit hard to forget when you have to dive into the nearest alleyway.
FWIW, I'm pretty confident that what you experienced was some kind of special situation, perhaps even a threat of some kind. Which is not to say that there aren't sometimes armed military personnel from host countries near the EL AL counter.
EL AL security agents who do pax screening are not active members of the Israeli military (I'm not saying an active member has never worked as an agent, who knows; but it's not the military who does the screening), and I'll bet you'll have a nearly impossible time locating anyone else who can point to a time that they've seen an actual EL AL security agent, doing screening, with an UZI.
(My response is just intended as an FWIW/FYI, not to argue with you - I quite believe that you saw what you saw. I'm just saying it's not typical, nor standard.)