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I don't normally use this space to comment on features in
an issue, believing good writing (and editing) should speak for
themselves and that the puffery ("we are so lucky to have
Martha Stewart share her thoughts on Coquille St. Jacques, Belgian
lace and disassembling 1911s") that is sometimes contained
in "from the editor" messages is a little much. In January of this year, well after the misery and horror of Sept. 11, 2001, but before the current wave of bombings in Israel, I attended the SHOT Show in Las Vegas. To get to Las Vegas I had to board a plane in Buffalo (I remind you it was January, and while my hackles rise at Buffalo jokes, I have a native's sense of fatalism about the deep winter weather). My briefcase caused some alarm and a female security person (what is the correct nomenclature here? Attendant? Agent?) motioned me out of line and asked if she could look inside. "Sure," I said, confident that the contents (cell phone, makeup bag sans tweezers, copy of P.G. Wodehouse's The Cat-Nappers, day planner, gum, tissues, pens, deck of cards, itinerary, antacids, business cards and assorted bits of fluff) would pass muster. Instead of actually going through the case, however, the agent sent it through the scanner three more times, then asked me to sit and remove my shoes. Fortunately, I had taken off my winter boots in the car and put on a pair of loafers so footwear removal was not as difficult as it might have been. My briefcase went through the scanner once more and a smile lit the face of what seemed to be my very own personal security person. "Is there," she guessed, with the aplomb of Carnac the Magnificent, "a roll of quarters in here?" Well, yes, there was. I was, after all, going to Las Vegas. I also routinely carry quarters on trips, for telephones and soda machines. She eventually confirmed this by reaching into the briefcase-the same case I had said she could look in 20 minutes earlier-and I was sent on my way to find the rest of my party, and be on my way. At SHOT, I met a writer who lives in Israel and asked me if I would be interested in a piece on women in the Israeli military. We talked a little more and we agreed he would send me an outline. On my return from Las Vegas to Buffalo I got pulled out of the initial security line, again by a female, who didn't look in my briefcase, but instead wanded me with a scanner. "Underwire bra?" she inquired. "Yes," I admitted, mentally kicking myself for my lingerie choice. Off came the shoes, out went the arms so that confirmation, via a pat-down, could be made of this fact. Off I went to another bar and another round of ribbing from my fellow travelers. At the boarding gate, I was also asked to step out of line, and, in truth, gentle readers, by this time, I was kind of annoyed. Behind a curtain I went where the male security attendant/agent was just finishing up with an elderly gentlemen from Taiwan. My shoes removed, I sat while he went through my briefcase and purse asking how I had enjoyed Las Vegas. Then on to the hand scanner and pat-down. I boarded the plane seething with irritation and spent the first half of the flight composing snotty letters mentally to various government agencies and airlines, when normally I would be frantically reviewing my limited knowledge of aerodynamics and the laws of probability. Back home a few weeks later, I got an email inquiring if I had remembered meeting the writer in Vegas and our discussion about the story. I accepted the piece and we negotiated a deadline and other details. In late March, the bombings started again in Israel, including the Passover-eve attack at a crowded Seder dinner in Netanya. While the events in Israel have happened on a much smaller scale than in the US last fall, they share many similarities, including root causes, which I won't belabor here. However, the most striking similarity is the willingness of the murderer of civilians (whether called a "suicide bomber" or a "murder bomber"), to trade his or her life for the deaths of others. In Israel, members of the Lochamot MaGav, including those profiled in these pages, are charged with stopping these murderers, even at the cost of their lives. It should be instructive to all of us to read about what such
training entails and to look into the faces of the very young
women (and their male compatriot) MaGavnics.
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By
Peggy Tartaro,
