A friend of mine who is still in the Marines Reserves just came back from Fort Knox from his 2 week training. His unit chartered a commercial jet from Boise to Kentucky. Get this, they got to take on their M-16A2's onboard the plane (since it was chartered by the military)! HOWEVER their 1st Sgt along with a security personnel from airport security, collected all their "dangerous" weapons like nail clippers and knives. Being on field training for two weeks, the majority of the Marines had knives and other tools in addition to their M-16's, however when they turned them in, the 1st Sgt made sure they got them back, unlike the rest of us who turn stuff in at the airport. They didn't bother checking for bullets, just them dangerous nail clippers.

Tell me this is a joke.

They confiscated nail files and clippers, but you could take your automatic rifle on board?

-legrue (mourns common sense)

Ok, so its not April 1, so when are you going to say, JUSSST KIDDING?!

I find this extremely unplausable.

Well my buddy could have been lying to me, but I doubt it as he had no reason to and was pretty pissed about it. It was just a couple of days after he came back from his two weeks and he wasn't drunk enough to embellish. I don't know the rules for a "military" chartered commercial airline.

I do remember that when I went to the gulf war, we went on chartered commercial jets and we took our m-16's "and" knives and stuff onboard without issue. However this is post 9/11 and homeland security is kickin ass![rolleyes]

Fogot to add that I belive him because he was seriously pissed that they took his leaherman, and that's his baby tool as he is a tanker and is never without it.

When my brother returned from Saudi Arabia they were on a chartered SWA flight.  They wouldn't let them in the airport they had to de-plane on a taxi way.

Thats messed up if they let them keep weapons but not nail clippers.