I finally am getting around to watching Taking Chance, which has been sitting on my DVR for a while. It's an HBO movie based on an article written by a marine who escorted the remains of a fallen comrade on his last journey home.

One thing that I've seen so far that has made me hopeful is that they don't portray the TSA in a very good light. Kevin Bacon, who plays the escort officer, gets up to the WTMD and is unable to place the soldiers personal effects through the X-Ray machine, and is unable to take off his uniform jacket. The TSA "officer" is portrayed (accurately) as a clueless goon who has no respect for anyone. It's a brief scene but this accurate portrayer of a TSO in a less-than-favorable light makes me wonder if people are finally starting to get it.

Why is he unable to put stuff in the X-Ray? Why can't he take off his jacket? I don't understand.

Oh really?

I've seen hundreds of uniformed officers go through checkpoints and not one of them was ever "unable" to put anything into the X-ray. I haven't seen this movie but would it be safe to say Kevin Bacon's character was a bit emotional before he hit the checkpoint.

In the movie, the escorts were explicitly told to keep the personal effects of the deceased in their possession until they were presented to the family. Since this was his first time doing this, he took those instructions to heart. Part of the scene was Bacon putting the effects into a bin, and quickly changing his mind.

Those officers were not escorting the remaiins of a fallen soldier to its resting place.

This is not a "new" topic on FT:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/archive/t-556558.html

The items that he could not send through X-Ray were the personal effects of a fallen soldier. He wasn't going to take off his jacket out of respect to the fallen soldier he was escorting.

The factuality of the story is not what I'm pointing out, but rather the portrayal of the TSO as the thoughtless and rude goons they can often be. Out of all the people that the character meets during his trip escorting the fallen soldier home the only rude and uncaring person he meets is a TSO. As they say, precise in mood if not in particulars.

I plan on watching it when it comes out on DVD as my brother-in-law was wounded in the same action that took Chance's life.