Is this story true? Snopes doesn't have the answer.

Is this story true?

I checked Snopes, but they don’t know.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/military/comehome.asp

Sounds fake.

I agree it sounds fake, no airline, airport, destination or other similar detail included, which is indicative of fakes.

340? The 767 only seats 325 at the most.

http://www.jetthrust.com/htdocs/boeing-767.php
And who would know how many passengers? Did they count them?

Yeah, as much as I admire what the military men and women are doing, that story has an Urban Legend quality to it.
Does the FAA allow planes to wait so returning Marines can catch their flight? Granted, it is a nice gesture but I think the FAA would be probably prohibits airlines from making arbitrary delays.
Also, why wasn’t it announced immediately that the delay was for returning Marines? Maybe because the story wouldn’t have that “all of a sudden” impact?
Also, would a group of Marines just returning from Iraq just happen to be taking the very same civilian flight? Wouldn’t the military have their own planes to take them to their nearest base?

Not all the time wolf_Meister…sometimes it is cheaper to contract a few seats for a few good men rather than expend military resources to cart men back and forth…I was active duty in the Air force 8 years and only flew in one military aircraft…F-16…for winning a prestigeous award…

Sounds like a nice story tho!

Probably just a story. With the amount of traffic being handled, a plane can’t leave (Major Terminal) for (major terminal) without having an assigned place in the landing rotation at the destination. Delays for any reason really screw things up and I think only result from mechanical difficulties or air traffic snarls such as for inflight difficulties or other unexpected events.

The earliest Google hit i’ve found is a May 30, 2003 on-line issue of a Marine Corps fansite. Does this offer any help?

I waited over an hour in Memphis for a plane to Tupelo to leave. The reason was that an FAA inspector was scheduled to inspect that flight and her plane was late getting in from Little Rock. Point I’m making is the FAA makes exceptions.

The Marines could have arrived on a ship (again it would help if we knew where this happened). The Marines do not have many fixed wing large planes, mostly jets and helicopters. There easily could be a group traveling across country.

We used to fly around in commercial jets a bunch. In fact, my first Marine Corps flight was off to Quantico, VA for OCS. It was a United flight, and if I remember correctly, we took off on time. 13 years ago, though.

This sounds bogus. The real stories have more details, like flight number, from where to where, what time of day.

It’s that kind of “grey-area” stuff that makes us all flinch a little – if we crap on it, we hedge on unpatriotic.

I think it’s ham-fisted allegory.

It seems like creeping totalitarianism…worship of the warrior in a totalitarian state is par for the course. Apocryphal stories like this are only the beginning. I’m sorry. Stuff like this scares the hell out of me.

Real or fake, it’s so poorly written and trite that I’m dumber just for having read it.

Real or fake, it’s so poorly written and trite that I’m dumber just for having read it.

Other than the part about delaying the plane, this is pretty much what happened to me and several other soldiers on our first US flight out of Andrews AFB coming from Saudi Arabia in 1992. We had to run like hell through the airport to make the plane on time. They did call ahead at the check-in counter to let them know we were coming but I don’t think we actually delayed the flight. Everybody bought us drinks but after being dry for so long I could only handle about 2.

Why was he “selfish”? I try to give people the benefit of the doubt but most of the time when people hold up planes either they are either being thoughtless, or the airline screwed. Eg. celebrities who are being pampered.

Anyway, regardless of whether it actually happened, many things like it did, didn’t they? Many people are very nice to soldiers, because they’re risking their lives for their country. Not all of them spew their experience out into a chain letter.

Also I feel constrained to point out that buying drinks for, praying for, and generally respecting soldiers is a good thing (normally), and is unrelated to whether the war was justified. They didn’t choose it.

All this story lacks is a high school band, who just happened to also be on board, breaking into a selection of patriotic standards and the flight crew tearing up their flight manuals to make ticker tape.

Oh, and maybe a mother giving birth mid-flight and naming child after the first names of the entire platoon.

The version of the story that I’ve traced to May of this year had slightly different wording.

The story said “I sat in my seat of the Boeing 767 from Atlanta to San Diego.”

It also appeared on May 31, 2003, over at a site http://www.unsolvedmysteries.com/usm342483.html which seems to be where aspiring authors can post stories or just anyone can post glurge such as this with no hint of its origin.

Don’t forget the Captain and First Officer getting food poisoning.

It sounds to me kind of like a modified version of the Pilot of commercial airliner makes announcement that the flight is carrying the body of a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq glurge.

No, even better! An 8 year old orphan flying to hospital in a coma comes around on hearing the cheering. He later goes into surgery clutching the dog-tags of the soldier who befriended him.

A 36 year old alcoholic, flying out to the coast to walk into the ocean and bid the cruel world goodbye gets the inspiration to go back to his family and give up the drink.

An elderly widow, grieving for her recently departed husband and flying out to her daughter’s to live out her empty life is invited by one of the kindly soldiers back to his home, where she meets and falls in love with his widower father, a veteran of the Korean war.

Now we’re getting an urban tale worth emailing to all your friends!