Security Checks

I really don't know why but I get anxious when someone performs a security check on me. Thankfully, it doesn't happen very often. The most recent incident was at Camp Lejeune. We were there to meet our grandson who was returning from a seven month deployment as a member of  MEU (Marine Expeditionary Unit). He's not a Marine, but like his father, a sailor.  He' a Hospital Corpsman assigned to the Marines.

Camp Lejeune is in Jacksonville, North Carolina.  I doubt if there would be a Jacksonville if it were not for Camp Lejeune. We had to obtain visitor passes to enter the military base from the base Visitors Center. It was furnished very sparsely. That was fine with me.  I would rather the military spent my tax money on weapons rather than comfy chairs.The somewhat taciturn lady in her early fifties was very nice and furnished us with the required forms on clipboards.  She gave us pens too.  My pen skipped over the poorly printed form.  (I don't think their printer had been serviced since the Civil War.) It was the usual numbers, addresses and questions describing us physically. We sat on the hard chairs and waited to be called to the counter. Patience is not one of my virtues.

Eventually our names were called to the counter manned by dutiful public servants. They wee civilians.  There were no military personnel in the Center. The counter ran the length of the room and was cluttered with keyboards and monitors and video cameras. Claudette dealt with a bearded man with a ponytail and receding hairline. He had the personality of a rock.  (I'm being kind.) I, on the other hand, was being served by a lady with a bubbly personality with tangled unkept brown hair. She dutifily reviewed the information I had entered on the aforementioned form. She laughed when I said I waa six feet tall except when I was depressed. This lady was peering over the top of her computer monitor. Imagine this; she has one monitor on the counter and another above it. I could barely see her face peaking between them.  There is a device on the counter to take, I guess that is the proper term, my fingerprint. It refuses to take the fingerprint of my right index finger!  And middle finger, ring finger and thumb. She checks to make sure the equipment is working. I say, "It may be because I have callouses on my fingers from playing the guitar."

She says, "Really?"

"Yeah, I do a mean intro to Sweet Home Alabama!"  I felt a bead  sweat pop out on my brow and hoped she did not detect the lie I told. (I fret the guitar with my left hand.) After considerable fretting of another kind the technological marvel finally got my fingerprint of third finger, left hand. After I was fingerprinted, I had to be photographed. Once again, Lady Luck did not smile down on me. Oh, no... I think she signaled some thing with her finger. The camera is mounted on the counter. That's okay... if you are severly height challenged. "Stoop down," she orders.

I stoop.

"More," she says.

"Like this?" I ask as the arthritis in my left knee let itself be known. Yes, there was pain! I moved a little bit lower and I heard her say, "Got it!" Once you look at my picture on the Visitor Pass you'll understand the situation clearly.
I straightened up and replaced my USS Intrepid ball cap, the pain subsiding in my left knee.

And then I heard the voice from the other side of the cluttered counter say, "I think there is a problem."

I had the feeling something had been found in my past that would jeopardize my application. What could it be? I just wanted to  see our grandson. I was not a security risk. Probably some low level clerk in some far away city was holding up my perceived future happiness. Or maybe a computer glitch. After a very long moment the voice from the other side of the counter says, "Oh, the problem was just our printer! Here is your pass Mr. Young! Have a nice day!"

We walked out of the Visitor Center under threatening skies but I had passed another security check and we were going to see our grandson. All was right with the world.