And then there is this...re:Franken

[Lee-Lee]

73. No, you wear your body armor when you take off from the combat zone

And it stays on until the aircraft has crossed into safe airspace, at which time it can be removed if you want.

Been there, done than on at least a half dozen times. Every plane I’ve taken out of the combat zone was in body armor.

The in-country escorts would have met them when they landed in country and stayed with them until they left for the flight home, but they don’t fly from the states with them or return with them. The logistics of sending extra uniformed people from the states to theater is too expensive and time consuming to do so for a 2 week tour because it requires a 4 week workup where the person goes through all the validation steps required to be deployable.

As for when the picture was taken, when you get a CD of pictures it’s oretty easy to see context and date. How many times where they on that kind of plane? How were they dressed those times? How many times did she sit in the side seat instead of center seats? When I look at a batch of photos from my vacation I can tell what days they were taken, it’s not that hard to figure out.