Baggage Policy A Disgrace

By Jim Belshaw

Is primal scream therapy still a good thing? Is it accepted in polite company or should I leave the room? I’ll play it safe. I’ll leave. Be right back.

There. I feel better.

I know I haven’t fixed anything; I didn’t add anything new; I didn’t change the paradigm. (I love that word. Just once in my life I’d like to change the paradigm. It sounds like such a fun thing to do).

Anyway, leaving the room and screaming seemed a reasonable thing to do after reading that American Airlines was charging soldiers who were lugging luggage off to war. (The airline has since changed the policy, as have other airlines. Taxpayers pick up the airfare for military personnel traveling under orders, but the soldiers were being charged for the extra bags.)

I flew like this myself once. I don’t remember us being charged for the bags, but it was a chartered plane hired explicitly to haul Americans off to war and the luggage question might have been included in the deal along with the cramped seats, bad food and testy flight attendants. (All part of the coach- class war travel package, don’t you know.)

When I first saw that American Airlines was charging for soldiers whose luggage exceeded the weight limits (that darn war stuff can be awfully heavy), I sent the story to a friend in Los Alamos, a retired infantry colonel who pulled two tours in Vietnam, where, presumably he humped his own duffel bag. (“Humped” is an infantry word. It has nothing to do with sex. Feel free to call the children back into the room.) In my e-mail to him, I attached the baggage story and wrote: “Words fail me.” He wrote back: “Me, too.” If you knew him, you would understand the full meaning of words failing him. He has a way of making words work for him. It’s an infantry colonel thing, if you know what I mean. But given that words are all we have, I want to try a few. Here they are: Why is this baggage thing even a question? I understand that airlines are in economic hard times and charging for everything they can think of, but how has it come to pass that soldiers humping duffel bags filled with gear they will use in Iraq, Afghanistan and who knows where else are being charged anything by any American airline? It is true that the troops may be reimbursed later if they put in a claim, file the paperwork at their next duty station and … oh, I know we can do better than this. I have one fond memory of wearing a uniform while flying standby, which a long time ago was the preferred airline flight method of all those with one stripe on their sleeves. I was on leave between boot camp and an overseas assignment. Flying hither and yon, I found myself in Philadelphia, waiting yet again on standby. I was last in line and the guys in front of me gave me the usual grief as their names were called and the gate shut.

I slumped in a chair, waiting for the next plane, when I heard someone yelling, “You! Move it!”

I moved it. A flight attendant and a co-pilot stood at the airplane door waving me forward. It seemed a passenger had canceled – - in first class. First class! I was 18. The steak was good in first class. The wine, too. A delightful red with a lovely bouquet, as I recall. I probably made too big a deal out of asking the flight attendant to close the curtain separating first class from the enlisted hoi polloi in the back of the plane, but I was much in the moment. I’m sure you understand. Such things come to mind when I see stories about airlines charging soldiers for their duffel bags. Words fail me. How can that be? How

can it even be a question on the table — unless we as a country are so far removed from these men and women that we see them only as one more economic opportunity, one more small way to make the quarterly report a little more festive. How can an airline’s baggage policy be anything but this: If you are wearing a uniform on behalf of the country, then your baggage gets loaded; no questions asked; no fees paid.

How can it be anything else?

I’d like to have another go at primal scream therapy, but I probably won’t do it. I think the first one scared a couple of reporters in the back of the building. It’s best to keep them calm. Write to Jim Belshaw at The Albuquerque Journal, P.O. Drawer J, Albuquerque, NM 87103; telephone — 823-3930; e-mail — jbelshaw@

abqjournal.com

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