Where's my free pot?

I've never liked dealing with security at the airport. It seems like I'm always 'randomly' selected for searches and they always go through my bags and mess up my stuff.

It turns out the problem I've been having with airport security is that I haven't ever flown through Japan.

Over the weekend, Tokyo's Narita airport was practicing drug searches. Instead of putting a package of weed into a dummy suitcase, a worker decided to stash the stash in a traveler's suitcase.

The only problem was, the drug dog failed to find the package.

So someone this weekend got a little surprise in their bag when they got to their destination (by the way, if that someone was you, authorities are asking for their drugs back).

I don't even smoke weed and I'm jealous because I never find anything good in my luggage.

All I ever find is one of those stupid sheets telling me they went though my bags. Which wouldn't be a problem, but the majority of the time I fly, it's because the Army told me I had to go somewhere.

You'd be surprised at the amount of stuff a soldier can cram into a duffle bag. If duffle bag packing were an Olympic sport, soldiers would always win the gold medal. It takes some work to get everything into one and than you have to bounce it just right and pull all the flaps together to get it to close.

Security guys just don't have the art form down, so it's not uncommon to see an open duffle bag coming down the chute at the baggage collection point. I've known other soldiers who have ended up missing items they packed once we got to where we were going.

The only item I've ever had come up missing when I've traveled is the water in my canteens. But it's OK, I managed to find the liquid. It was all over my uniforms and other clothes.

I wouldn't mind having my stuff and body searched randomly, if I wasn't always randomly selected. I know I'm not a terrorist, - I try telling the security guards this but they never want to listen - and if they are searching me, it means they aren't searching someone else. And maybe that someone else actually is a terrorist.

When I flew back to Louisiana to meet my unit after my pre-Iraq leave was up, my family was allowed to escort me to the gate. However, I wasn't able to spend any additional time with my family because when I went through security, they wanted to go through all my stuff.

I was pretty upset. At the time, I had no way of knowing if the last 10 minutes I would ever spend with my family would be with them 10 feet on the other side of a sheet of glass watching me get my stuff searched.

I was upset, until the Boise police officer decided to come overlook my search. That pretty much calmed me down in a hurry.

As soon as they were done, I had just enough time to get on the plane before they shut the doors.

Luckily for me, I would get to see my family again, but unlucky for me, not before seeing airport security guards again.

When I flew home for my leave during my tour in Iraq, we flew from Iraq to Kuwait on a C-130 and from Kuwait to Dallas in a charter plane. From Dallas, we had to get off the plane, go though customs, exit the part of the airport we were in and go in whatever direction our tickets took us.

This meant having to go through security again. When I tried going though security the first time, I was told I had to go to see someone at a desk because my name was on a suspected terrorist list.

Once we determined it was another Robert Taylor, I was allowed to attempt to go back through security where I was randomly selected to be searched. I was wearing my uniform with the huge cargo pockets and had about 30 pounds of stuff crammed into them and my other pockets. I had to empty my pocket, take off my belt and remove my boots.

Nothing says hero's welcome like flying halfway around the world from a combat zone to be treated like a common terrorist upon landing.

When I got randomly selected again on my way to Mississippi to help rebuild damage caused by Katrina over spring break with about 60 students from my school, I tried telling the security guards I wasn't a terrorist again.

The guy asked me if I knew what one looked like and said since he didn't know what one looked like, they had to search all sorts of people.

I asked him how many terrorist he thought was in the Army. He told me Timothy McVeigh had been in the Army, too.

Which begged the question, "How many planes did McVeigh crash into buildings?"

The security guard didn't like the question too much.

At which point, I decided to keep my mouth shut and enjoy the rest of my spring break.