Vermont's Northland Journal

My Father, the Terror Suspect!

by Scott Wheeler

Much has changed in this country since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The search for terror suspects, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, are serious business, but mixed in amongst the seriousness are some humorous stories—stories such as the ones my father has to tell. More than once since the attacks he has gone from being a law-abiding citizen, if only for a minute, to a possible terror suspect, at least in the eyes of federal officials.
A proud American with 23 years of service to his country, my father, Wayne Wheeler of Newport, has pretty much walked a straight and narrow life. Other then a local police officer mindlessly giving him a ticket for driving with an expired inspection sticker as he drove into a car dealership to get his vehicle inspected, I have never known him to have a run-in with the law. Well, suddenly, following the terrorist attacks, my father just can’t seem to stay out of the attention of federal officials. Although I realize the mission to capture suspected terrorists before they launch another attack is serious business, I joke to my father that at the rate that he is going, government agents are going to place him on a list of people to watch. Although he still cringes at the foolishness of the police officer who obviously gave him the ticket to show his “crime- fighting” prowess, he has taken his recent contact with federal officials in stride. He realizes that they are only doing their jobs to protect the country.
My father’s first run-in with the feds occurred innocently enough during a trip to Washington, D.C. in early 2002, only a few months following the attack on the Pentagon. While viewing the devastation caused by the jet that smashed into that government building, he was hassled by a couple of military men. They apparently thought he had violated governmental policies relating to photographing that general area. After clicking through the pictures on my father’s digital camera, the officials quickly determined that he was innocent of any violations. But, no, my father’s adventures in Washington, D.C. weren’t over yet. It’s no surprise to find a pocketknife in a Vermonter’s pocket. Carrying a pocketknife in Vermont is one thing, though, and carrying one in government buildings in Washington, D.C. in post terrorist attack Washington, D.C., is another. Walking through metal detectors as he entered the Ronald Reagan Building, alarms suddenly sounded. Searching through his pockets for anything metal, my father found the culprit, his pocketknife. That little knife might as well have been a Samara sword, because the person operating the detector wasn’t letting him any further with the knife. Instead of forfeiting his knife, he went back outside, hid it, then went back inside, and successfully passed through the metal detector. Following his visit in the building, he retrieved his knife from its hiding spot.
Returning home, much to the relief of my mother, Pauline, he kept a low profile for about two years. Then, in April of this year, while he and my mother were returning home from one of their weekly trips to Quebec, he attracted the attention of agents with the Department of Homeland Security who guard the ports of entry into the country. Led inside, the officers explained to him that their radiation detectors had detected radiation emitting from his vehicle, or was it from the driver? After a round of questioning, the officers quickly determined that my father wasn’t attempting to smuggle radioactive material, or a radioactive “dirty bomb” into the U.S. Instead, they let him go after concluding that radioactive isotopes that had been put in his body during a recent stress test a few days earlier, not a potential bomb, had triggered the radioactive reading.
The stress test determined that his heart was just fine, but at this rate, I’m not sure what all this excitement is doing for my mother’s blood pressure or nerves. I think she just wishes she could go back to being married to the same man she had been married to for more than 40 years—the American patriot, not a possible terror suspect.