Joe Foss , an 86 year old retired Marine Corps general and former Governor of South Dackota, was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his extraordinary heroism during the battle for Guadalcanal. As a fighter pilot in World War II, Foss shot down 26 Japanese planes in one-on-one air-to-air combat. The Congressional Medal of Honor is the highest award for valor in combat that can be bestowed upon American military personnel.
On January 11th of this year, long before the current heightened security alert, Joe Foss was leaving his Arizona home for a trip to address the Corps of Cadets at West Point. He took his medal with him so he could show it to the cadets. When the security screeners at Phoenix International Airport found the medal in his jacket pocket, THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND PARANOIA bells and whistles went off.
The screeners considered the Medal of Honor a suspicious five-pointed metal object similar to a HIRA SHUNKEN, the Japanese Ninja throwing star. These idiot security screeners, who are under the Transportation Security Administration branch of the Department of Homeland Paranoia (oops - I meant to say Department of Homeland Security), must have watched way too many Kung Fu movies. You would have to be pretty ignorant not to recognize that metal object for what it was.
After 45 minutes of being hassled and passed off from "nasty" screener to "nasty" screener, Foss was finally passed through security with his medal in hand. During that time, this 86 year old man was ordered three different times to remove his cowboy boots, his bolo tie, his cowboy belt, and his cowboy hat for inspection. When he was told to discard the medal so that it could be destroyed, he told the screeners that he would not give it up.
All of us should support the thorough screening of airline passengers and their baggage for any dangerous weapons and explosives. But subjecting an 86 year old man to three inspections of his boots, tie, belt and hat, over a 45 minute period is a bit too much, to put it mildly. And there is a world of difference between a medal for valor and a hira shunken. Dishonoring a genuine great American hero by threatening to confiscate and destroy his Congressional Medal of Honor is unbelievable and unforgivable.
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