TSA program helps injured service members navigate security

Getting through airport security is rarely fast or pleasant, so imagine what it’s like if you’re recovering from a war injury.

To help those service members, the Transportation Security Administration has established the Wounded Warrior/Military Severely Injured Joint Support Operations Center Program. It’s designed, the TSA website says, to “make the overall experience for the Wounded Warrior as simple and trouble-free as possible.”

“It’s something we have been working toward for some time,” said Nico Melendez, a TSA spokesman who also has served in the Middle East. “After a decade of war, there are more and more injured coming through our airports, especially in concentration areas likeWashington, D.C., or San Diego…They need to get to where they are going.”

The service member or family can contact the TSA at (888) 262-2396 or email [email protected] (email is preferred, the website says) with flight details. They still must go through screening, Melendez said, but a move to a risk-based security screening “gave us some opportunity to leverage who they are…and we can provide an added element of customer service,” he said.

More info is available on the TSA web page.