Security Screening

Too much travel these last several weeks.  On Friday, I came back to Atlanta from Charleston, West Virginia, flying out of Yeager Airport.  Yeager Airport is named for Chuck Yeager, the test pilot who first broke the sound barrier in the Bell X-1 in 1947.  There's a bust of General Yeager in the lobby of the airport and a portrait of him on the wall above the area where passengers go through security screening.

It's a very small airport, and the only restaurant is on the outside of security.  There is a sign there that says something to that effect, and when I confirmed with one of the TSA agents that indeed there wasn't another restaurant in the gate area, I went and got something to eat before coming back to security.  There were more TSA agents than passengers there when I was there the first time, and it was the same when I came back after dinner.  There were two young men in line ahead of me.  One went through, and then the other one stepped up and handed his paperwork and identification to the TSA agent.  He was in his 20s, with short dark hair and a short beard, wearing a green T-shirt (some sort of youth group activity, I think -- there was lots of writing, but I didn't read it), warm up pants, and sneakers, with a cloth roll-aboard bag.

The agent flipped through the pages of his flight paperwork, which looked like a multiple-paged paper ticket of the kind I haven't seen for years, when you got a little booklet with a page for every leg of a trip with multiple flights.  For identification, he had provided a passport, which was dark blue and I assume was a U.S.  passport.  The TSA agent looked at that too, and then asked the the young man -- not in an unkind way -- "Where are you going, son?"  

I couldn't hear the response, and neither could the TSA agent, who asked him to repeat it.  The agent was polite but clearly something had gotten his attention.  He asked the young man to come with him and they both stepped around the corner.  I was left there alone for a bit -- not long, maybe a minute or so.  Then the agent came back and apologized for the delay.  I told him it was fine and didn't say what I was thinking, that if there was an issue with a passenger I wanted them to take as much time as they needed to sort it out, and anyway, I'm from Atlanta, and sometimes security screening takes half an hour or more at Hartsfield.  He looked at my boarding pass and ID and waved me on through.

I went on to the x-ray area to disassemble my carry on bag.  The TSA agent at the x-ray screen held up 3 fingers to signal something to another agent, I assumed about what had been seen in the bag of the young man ahead of me.  "Three," he mouthed to the other agent.  Three what?  Three box cutters?  Three guns?  Three containers of forbidden hair gel?  Three what?

I went through the scanner, the one that used to show an blurry unclothed image and now just shows "OK" or not, and had to show the agent on the other side my left ankle.  Did I have an ankle bracelet on?  I don't think so, I said, which was a ridiculous answer, as I knew I didn't.  They waved me on through and I started to reassemble my possessions.  In the meantime, the cloth suitcase was open and was being emptied.  The TSA agent had taken out a worn notebook and an empty Nalgene water bottle.  The young man stood there watching, expressionless.

I went on to find my gate, figuring that whatever was in the suitcase, they were going to find it.  I found the gate and settled in for the wait until time to board.  But later, looking across the waiting area I saw him again, the young man in the green T-shirt, just standing here with his suitcase, on the far side of the seating area.

I didn't see him on my flight, but if he did have an international destination, he might have been headed to Atlanta and then on to somewhere else.  I don't know what it was that caught the TSA's attention initially.  Was it his destination, or the flat, expressionless affect?  I've had my carry on bags emptied more often in small airports than large ones (I assume the TSA agents don't feel so pressed by the long lines, so they can take just a little more time), and while they are doing it,  I don't just stand there.  I'm talking, explaining, carrying on a conversation.  He wasn't, and that's what I noticed.  He could have mental health issues and is on meds that made him that way, Tom said, when I told him this story after I got home.  Yes, that could be it.  Or he could have been on his way to a terrorist training camp, or he could be going home for his father's funeral.  I don't know.

I got home Friday night.  I am glad to here.