Listen you little Chairborne weenie, if I were you, I wouldn’t be strutting my stuff in all those ACUs or nothing. . . 'cause the ABUs look like them . . . but that’s not the point! As an Executive. . . well, Chairborne type like you. . . I needed that thing to get from. . . shoot, Bahrain to . . . Seychelles. . . to. . . Kansas. . . um, Ooohrah! [sub]or something[/sub]
Tripler
Hey, at least being CHAIRBORNE, I can fill out a form to file for one! 
One thing a U.S. uniformed services ID card and wearing a uniform WILL get you is exemption from the random searches at the airport. (It also gets you to the front of the screening line at some airports.)
Monty, if you’re saying that only dependants get blue no-fee passports, and military members still get the red official passports when required, then that is contrary to what I was told last time I was in the travel office at Benning. I specifically asked about the red passports and the lady told me that if I needed a passport for where the Army was sending me, they would issue me a blue one. She said they no longer do the red official passports for soldiers. It’s possible she was wrong, but that’s what she told me.
Perhaps, perhaps not. It all depends on the screening agent–and, of course, the willingness of the crowd in front of you.
She’s basicly wrong but sort-of-right in a way. If the military member is ordered to an area where the Status of Forces Agreement or equivlanent treaty requires the military member to have a passport but does not require him to have diplomatic status, then he gets the maroon passport. Depending on the treaty provisions, the accompanying family members will either get a maroon passport or a blue “no fee” passport. There are instances where the military member may be issued a blue “no fee” passport, but they are rare and are only for cases where such issue is considered as more beneficial to the safety of the traveler than having a passport that obviously designates him as a US government official. The travel agent at Fort Benning just may not have been involved in the rather more mundane type of travel. Perhaps her experience so far was just for travel to such areas.
Not necessarily. When Airman Doors was leaving tech school at Keesler AFB in Biloxi, Mississippi, he was holding a valid ID card and he was in uniform. He was also randomly searched. He also says he had to take off all the metal insignia from his uniform, which could have gotten ugly for him had a more senior servicemember called him out for being out of uniform.
It’s possible that the TSA agent made a mistake. But given the sheer number of military people flying in and out of that airport, it’s hard to believe that it was. It’s also possible that x number of people flying out of a given airport have to be searched to conform to protocol, which means that your assertion is false since most of the people who fly in and out of the Gulfport airport are at Keesler or at the Seabee base in Gulfport. The law of averages says that at least some of those searched would be military in uniform.
Robin
I’m quoting from FAA security regulation 108-01-10E of 20Nov01 Sec 2, para B1 on selectee exemptions.
However, I see that although it is a post-9/11 regulation, it may have been superseded by different rules when the TSA took over responsibility for screening passengers 3 months later.
The TSA website only mentions that military members in uniform don’t have to take off their shoes unless the shoes set off the metal detector.
Your brothers are pulling your chain.
At best. I guarantee you.
This happened in June of 2002. Like I said, it could have been a mistake, or it could have been the law of averages rearing its head. My point was just that it can happen.
Robin
They never gave me one the bastards!
I’m going to sue their arses into bankruptcy…