Greymatters said:
Young soldiers are good gate guards for short durations, but after too much time become bored and disullissioned with manning a gate where there is no 'action'. No amount of leadership or attempts at morale boosting is going to keep a young soldier motivated after doing gate duty for six months with no incidents.
Why does it have to be a 6 month rotation? And even if it was, this reminds me of a previous discussion I had here with someone who was outraged soldiers had to do 3 hour tower shifts without supervision. If your soldiers lack the discipline and professionalism to man a post, regardless of how long, then that is a leadership failure. 100%.
They will not be armed, they will not have authority to 'act', only to report, and have limited training in arresting anyone so won't be allowed to. They also lack experience in resolving situations at the lowest levels when flare-ups do occur. It is also difficult for them to perform their jobs when higher ranking persons use their rank to order young gate guards to not perform their duties properly. Use of third party secuirty services negates a lot of these issues.
Why would they not be armed? Having a loaded, but not readied weapon slung over your shoulder would send the right kind of message, I think. Its not like when something odd happens they are gonna pour out of their gatehouse or whatever, head up gun up yelling at the person.
And their "act" could be simply holding someone in place (not necessarily physically restraining them just telling them to sit tight) until the MP's could arrive. As for resolving things at the lowest level, that is why you'd have a Sgt or MCpl there, so the Pte/Cpl present is not making the big decisions. I think you grossly overestimate the type of situations they will encounter, or grossly underestimate the common sense the individuals will have.
For your second point, numerous people here perceive that every base in Canada in under imminent threat of an attack by criminal elements, terrorists or other ne'er-do-wells. If this were true then we would be manning our bases like the US and UK who have legitmate and proven historical threats. Unfortunately here in Canada the powers that be do not appear to believe that there is an imminent deadly threat to every base or its members that would require an immediate armed response. Thus the policy makers and providers of funding identify that the security can be handled by less skilled persons, hence the use of third party security vendors.
So how many dead soldiers will there be when a lone wolf, maybe one reading this very thread for ideas, decides that those damn infidels/capitalist supporters/baby killers/I hate the colour green so to hell with these soldiers! need to die to prove a point? Ask the victims of 9/11 if the "powers that be" thought there was an imminent threat? Since soldiers are paid 24/7 and I can't see many rounds actually being fired, the only cost would be slightly more CLP..
The third issue not mentioned is, can the CF afford to have a significant percentage of its military members assigned to permanent base security duties? Last year, no. This year, yes. Next year, who knows what new conflict will require all available bodies? It would be counter-productive to train thousands of soldiers across Canada for gate guard duties, and then have another major conflict require all available bodies, and we are forced to hire third party security providers again to cover the loss of manpower.
How much training do you think this will require? Have a book there with standing orders, and require that each person read it and sign that they understand it. If they have questions, have a radio/phone present with the number/call sign of MP dispatch. A proper hand over should occur and from there, eventually you need to trust your soldiers with a weapon. If you can't, then again its a leadership failure.
