Was trying to figure out if I should fire up the grill or the smoker.

I don't recall any lawsuits being filed with respect to Global Entry. But there is a clearly defined set of parameters and an ombudsman available. I have my doubts that TSA can implement a process that works as well asGE, but maybe my expectations are low.
If it will be less intrusive, then I think it stands the chance of being accepted. If it's like CLEAR and just lets one skip the line but leaves current processes in place, then I think it will be a lot harder. If it leave the same intrusiveness for enrollees but makes it worse for non-enrollees then I think you'll see an uproar. JMHO.

Thanks for the link. Contrary to what SATTSO said, it isn't posted in the first post in this thread, it's a hyperlink buried in the article that the first URL in the first post takes you to.

Now that I've read the info on the TSA site, my question is, "What's in it for me?" Or, for that matter, for my Korean-era vet, 84-year old father-in-law, who happens to be travelling in the next 72 hours. Neither one of us is severely injured, so what in that program "recently expanded to all veterans" is going to help me or my FIL to "proceed through security safely and with dignity."

Anybody? Anybody? Buehler? Buehler?

That's probably not a bad idea given the current situation. In the interest of intellectual honesty you might ask yourself what changed last November that could have caused some people to threaten violence. While the TSA doesn't threaten overt violence they do threaten loss of ability to travel, significant monetary loss and un-called for trips through the legal system. In my neck of the woods, (where the word "revenuer" is still heard on occasion) you'd probably hear the phrase "Y'all started it." While I think offering violence as a solution is pretty foolish you have to admit there is a long history of that in the US.

No, its not contrary to what I said. I said the information is in the first post, which is all there. Besides that, without having to click on any link, in the text of the first post is a contact number and an email to contact.

Edit: oh, please define "burried", because to me, a hyperlink that is on the first page, second paragraph, is not burried. Not even close.

We've deleted a number of inflammatory and argumentative posts. Those of you OMNI-enabled are advised to start your own threads over there rather than take this discussion any further off topic.

Thanks to the majority of you who follow the community Guidelines & Rules.

---------
essxjay
TS/S moderator

Hahaha well I liketo think of myself as tough, but I've been told I'm a softy, so... I guess indirect heat, slow cooked. Prepare to be up all night!

I'm having a hard time understanding this. SATTSO, you say that the program involves getting wounded veterans through the entire airport process, from taxi to check-in to gate or from gate to taxi. (Emphasis added.)
But this link you posted:

only talks about the screening checkpoint (emphasis added):
Nothing in the quoted link (or in the other link you posted) says anything about meeting them at the curb, pushing their wheelchair, collecting their luggage from the carousel, or helping them to their gate.

If you are doing this in SAT, that's great. But it's not what the TSA webpage says the program is about.

Two other points: airports and airlines around the world will provide this service, free of charge, for ANY passenger in a wheelchair (or for people with other movement disabilities, they will provide a wheelchair and this service.) I have used it myself in LAX, DEN and Australian, European and Asian airports before I had hip surgery. Over at the Disability Travel forum there are threads about experiences with wheelchair assistance. It is sometimes a bit confusing and sometimes the airport/airline is not very efficient about it. I had a wheelchair pusher at DEN who didn't speak English, as an example. But I find it hard to believe that SAT is so incompetent that wheelchair-bound veterans are regularly left stranded at the taxi, at the gate, or at check-in, to the point where TSA has to provide this service.

Secondly, if the program is (as you state) about helping wheelchair-bound veterans through the airport and not (as the website says) simply about the checkpoint, it is very odd that the program is being expanded to all veterans. And what happens at SAT to the non-veterans who are in wheelchairs; are they stranded at the taxi with their luggage, too, but TSA doesn't help them? If the program is expanded, wouldn't it make sense to include non-veteran disabled people rather than non-disabled veterans?

Something doesn't add up.

Back in post 34, you told Tom, "...your playing a game of semantics." Now I believe it's you playing a game of semantics.

There is some misunderstanding here: it was designed not for "wheelchair" bound vets, but any disabled vets. Think those with psychological but otherwise no physical impairment. And yes, it seems to be expanded. Why? Sorry, I don't know the answer to that.

And it's not just at SAT. The number and email to set this up is a NATIONAL number. It has NOTHING to do with SAT. NO, absolutely NO one can set this up locally. It must be through that national contact - which works in conjunction with the DOD, and almost always it is the medical facility that sets up the help.

But there is other proof (the national contact SHOULD be proof enough that this is not a SAT thing, it is TSA wide - but people here believe what they want, apparently, regardles of evidence), and that proof are a few other post by members over the months who have posted their disgust that TSA employees would dare meet wounded military at the gates to escort them. Why, some even suggest we looked at flight manifest to find these traveling wounded vets to meet them, unexpected, to puff out our collective TSA chest. Those post are scattered through various threads. You can search and read them, to control what I say. Proof that it happens at other airports besides SAT.

But let me ask you this: what does meeting someone at the gate and helping them collect their luggage and getting them to a taxi/shuttle have to do with "screening"? Answer: nothing. But, to be honest, that is mostly what I have done. And there is a reason for that... Too many times Ive heard from disabled passengers they had little problem getting a sky cap to help them to the gate, it wa their arrival that was the problem, with no one there to meet them.

It was your quote above, that said:
Somehow I got the impression it was wheelchair bound vets. Unless you've got vets with psychological impairment being left on the curb in wheelchairs?

The post you provided - "curb", "taxi", "wheelchair", "gate" "luggage" still doesn't match what the TSA website says which mentions ONLY the checkpoint.
I understand from the TSA website that it's a national program. I also understand from that website that it's a national program about getting through the checkpoint. I was giving you the benefit of the doubt that at SAT you were also helping with curbside assistance, pushing wheelchairs, at the gate, since you say you are doing those things. But the TSA website does not give any indication that nationally, TSA is meeting veterans at the curb, pushing wheelchairs, etc.

And as I noted from my own personal experience, the airlines are reasonably proficient about providing wheelchair assistance to anyone, veteran or not, who requests it.
I searched, I read.

Here's one about whether active military gets searched like everyone else (consensus is, they do.) http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...rched-too.html

Here's another one on the same topic. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-safety-security/1202637-active-duty-military-pat-downs.html

Ahh, this must be the one you mean: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/omni-...ard-again.html

It's about TSA providing an "honor guard" to meet the casket of deceased servicemen. I suppose strictly speaking, a deceased serviceman in a coffin is a "wounded" veteran , and an honor guard meeting the flight is "escorting" them , but somehow its not really the same as helping a live but wounded person from the taxi at the curb, pushing their wheelchair, finding their luggage, or taking them to the gate for their next flight.

And here's another one: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/omni-...e-me-sick.html Same airport, different day, same story. Deceased soldier, casket, honor guard.

I can't find anything where anyone is "disgusted" that you meet live, wounded veterans at their gate. If someone has said that, please feel free to provide a link to the actual thread and post, not just a "someone said somewhere."

So are you helping out disabled passengers (veterans and non-veterans alike) because it's a nice thing to do when the airlines can't manage, or is this a formal TSA program for veterans, regardless of whether the airline also has adequate wheelchair pushers?

They'll determine that your medals are potential weapons and that you must be a terrorist.

I used vets in wheelchairs as its the most common I have seen - and because its the mroe than likely the most easily understood by people on this site. I have also helped those with missing limbs, but not in wheelchairs, those with severe burns on their arms/hands, etc. And I have tried to explain all the situations that I have encounted or know about, from them being left at the curb side by cabs without further assistance, to them being left at the gate. However, mostly what I have encounted is meeting them upon arrival at the gate, to help them get their luggage, and bring them to a cab/shuttle. Which, of course, does not include screening at all.

And you are correct, sometimes the airlines are profecient, but to assume that is the standard - well, you may travel more than I, but I have spent more time in airports than you in the last 10 years, and they are far from proficient. I have encounted a multitude of people in distress becasue they could not get assistance with a wheelchair, or someone to carry their bags because they were on crutches. Airports only staff so many sky caps, and at the busier times of the year, they are in greater demand - which means some are left stranded for more than a bit of time.

No, I will not provide links. I don't feel like searching for it. And it does not matter to me if don't believe it, nor can not find it. Regardless, its on this site. They are burried in some threads - as you very well know that these threads take a life of their own, and often what is discussed has NOTHING to do with the title of the thread. My time is a bit more valuable to spend all that time looking through easily a hundred threads over the last 6 to 9 months. You, however, are free to do so, to cruise through every post on here for that time period....

Scratch that, I did a VERY QUICK search on Google (gotta love Francine, the Googling Lawyer), and found this thread from 2007 - where TSA is attacked by some for meeting wounded soldiers at the gate. So you can believe me or not, but there are many more comments like the ones you will read in this thread.... Here is one such comment:

"Funny, that's not what I thought the TSA is for. It is certainly not what my "September 11th Security Fee" moneys are intended for. Now if the local airport authority wants to hire LEO's to do this, so be it. The USO is also an appropriate entity to assist returning soldiers. If the TSA'holes are doing this on their own time, great, but then they should not be in uniform.
What next? TSA carrying the bags of returning sport teams? "


Anothe Quote: "I think the TSA should look for terrorists and bombs, not escort soldiers to the baggage claim area."

Another: " I have a lot of disdain and bad feelings about the TSA. I do not want an organization that terrorizes the average American citizen to buy "public PR" on my tax dollars.

You can all go greet vets all you like, but please don't do it under the guise of "the TSA really cares about you and our soldiers"

Last one I promise: "DO IT ON YOUR OWN TIME, JUST LIKE YOU SHOULD DO THE SOLDIER GREETS ON YOUR OWN TIME, NOT WHILE YOU'RE ON MY (THE TAXPAYERS') DIME."

There were more nasty comments, and some positive ones, too.

Now, this was before my time here at FT. I had not read this thread before (how did you miss it?). So, since I had not read this, yet can claim I have read similar comments up to recent months, the attitude I have described must not have gone away.... hmmmm....

Here is the link to that thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...ing-pax-2.html

All the quote I post were from different memebers, and I didn't even come close to posting them all.


Lastly, the is an official program run JOINTLY between the DOD and DHS/TSA. It is not done because it is "nice". The DOD saw a problem NOT TSA. And the DOD asked TSA/DHS to help. You may think there is no problem obtaining wheelchairs for anyone who needs them (this last Christmas holiday I spent my lunch helping an adult woman and her very elderly grandmother get to the gate when they asked for help becuse there were not enough sky caps - simple fact, there are often not enought), but the truth is, the DOD saw a problem with what was happening.

Now, if you think there are enough sky caps, you should contact the DOD and tell them the wounded soldiers were making up stories about having to wait for assistance, or being left on their own (how do you THINK the DOD found out about it? Someone had to tell them ... @:-) ), but personally, I will trust the wounded military personal that they did have to wait, at multiple airports, on multiple times, enough that it was a national problem.

Whew. Sorry for the long post, but I hope this addressed your concerns.

How would the DOD/TSA/DHS determine that over the phone? Even more so when you have to have official documentation to use this program?

This is my last try at making what is a pretty simple point.

This current thread started with the concept that there is an official TSA program to help wounded veterans through the security checkpoint. The first post in this thread has several links, and following those links one finds the following (emphasis added, but the text is intact):

Vietnam Veterans of America has exactly the same text as PVA above.

There is also the TSA website itself which I quoted in full in post # 53 above.

ALL of these links describe a program - I'm going to call it Program A - to help veterans get through the security checkpoint. That is ALL that is described in those links. Nothing there at all about help getting from the taxi to check-in, or from the gate to luggage carousel or anything else. The news items listed in the first post and quoted above further say that Program A is being expanded to cover all veterans. That is what the rest of us were discussing at the beginning of this thread.

In post # 17, you told us that You went on with examples involving getting from the taxi at the curb, picking up luggage, getting from the gate to a shuttle, and other non-checkpoint related activities. I'm going to call this Program B.

I am not disputing that Program B exists. If you say you are doing those things at SAT, I have no reason to doubt that you are doing those things at SAT. If you say that other airports also have Program B, I have no reason to doubt that either.

I am not arguing whether Program B is worthwhile. (I might do that later, but not in this post.)

But you are claiming that Program A - the topic of this thread - is the same as Program B. And I dispute that conclusion. The entire scope of Program A, as described by every link posted above, is checkpoint processes. It has nothing to do with the other aspects of getting through an airport.

Curiously, the 2007 thread you linked to - describing TSA people meeting veterans at the gate, pushing wheelchairs around the airport, etc - contains exactly the same observation by FliesWay2Much (emphasis mine):

Like FW2M, I wonder if there is a comprehension problem. There's an official Program A which says "help wounded servicemen and veterans at the checkpoint" and the local airports are interpreting this as "meet them at the taxi, take them to the gate, push their wheelchair, anything else you can think of."