December 2001

After Sept 11, 2001 the security at airports was greatly increase. Haley and I were flying to Texas for Christmas and making our way through all the security checkpoints in the Grand Rapids airport. One of the security guards decided that my the adapter for my camera's memory card looked like a dangerous weapon so they sent us to another area near some guards to inspect our bags more closely.

As we waited we noticed the guards. Their name tags looked something like this:

National Guard Bob Smith STeRILe

Now to me that just looked a little odd. What do they do to you in the national guard? I asked the guard about it and with a very serious expression on his face he said, "You don't want to know."

It turns out that they were in a sterile area meaning a place that they hadn't let any of the passengers carry guns into. I wanted to take a picture of his name tag, but figured they might think my camera was a weapon and shoot me or something.