St. Paul Pioneer Press | 04/12/2006 | Terror watch list trips up Marines' homecoming

St. Paul Pioneer Press | 04/12/2006 | Terror watch list trips up Marines' homecoming: "Twenty-six reservists returning to Minnesota from Iraq are forced to leave a comrade at the Los Angeles airport because the government had put his name on a list of potential terrorists.
BY BILL GARDNER
Pioneer Press

Marine Staff Sgt. Daniel Brown has just spent the past eight months serving his country in Iraq, only to return to the United States and find out his country had placed him on a watch list as a possible terrorist.

A ceremony was waiting Tuesday at home in the Twin Cities for Brown and 26 other Marine military police reservists returning from the war. There were eager families and bagpipes.

But Northwest Airlines wouldn't let him on the plane in Los Angeles. His name had been flagged on the federal list.

As he worked with airport staff to gain permission to fly, the other 26 Marines arrived back in Minnesota on schedule. But rather than meet up with their families located just minutes from the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, they opted to wait on a bus.

'We don't leave anybody behind,' said Marine 1st Sgt. Drew Benson. 'We start together, and we finish together.'

Brown arrived more than an hour later.

'A guy goes over and serves his country fighting for eight or nine months, and then we come home and put up with this crap?' Brown said."