\n Shamara Fielder hit a breaking point as a TSA agent last October during the longest government shutdown in American history.\n <\/p>\n
\n Though the 35-year-old said she loved serving her country, the toll of the shutdown wore on her.\n <\/p>\n
\n As the paychecks stopped and travel was disrupted, Fielder found herself filling in for colleagues who didn\u2019t show up for unpaid shifts at Orlando International Airport, canceling her pre-paid vacation and dealing with more frustrated passengers \u2013 all while she struggled to keep up with her bills, Fielder told CNN.\n <\/p>\n
\n She ultimately quit last year around Halloween after nearly two years on the job.\n <\/p>\n
\n With the current partial shutdown in its fourth week, Fielder warns that missed paychecks and officers calling out could potentially distract overworked agents.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt leaves us very open to a lot a lot of evil, hateful people who are just waiting on us to slip up,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n
\n Fielder is all too familiar with the importance of staying focused as a TSA agent.\n <\/p>\n
\n During her two years as an agent, she recalled one incident where she caught a bag with a 9-millimeter gun and 80 rounds of bullets. On another instance, a person attempted to bring drugs and parts for an improvised explosive device through her security line, Fielder said.\n <\/p>\n
\n CNN has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for comment.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cYou already have the pressure of \u2026 millions of people\u2019s lives in your hand essentially. One bad move, one mistake, can cost someone their life,\u201d Fielder told CNN.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shamara Fielder hit a breaking point as a TSA agent last October during the longest government shutdown in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534908,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,29430,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-534907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-hnk","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}