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Kat Stevens said:
You had to go there... ;D
Time to Arm Cenotaph Guard? (split from Domestic Terrorism)
- Thread starter Cdn Blackshirt
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You had to go there... ;D
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cupper said:
I did a lot of Paid Duty as a Paramedic. When you respond to an emergency outside of your dedicated standby, they send a another crew out of the car count to backfill. Toronto Police do the same thing, so I assume Ottawa does as well.
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JS2218 said:
You can't do both at the same time.
George Wallace
Army.ca Dinosaur
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JS2218 said:
Just want to point out that the police are not "sentries". The fact that you only saw one does not mean there was only one. Mother Nature does come into play and perhaps they were on a "Bio Break" or just not in you view.
I'm just gonna copy and paste my reply to this from elsewhere:
Ignorance abounds in the replies to this. I am a reservist. I have both received and instructed on the majority of training that most reservists working at Ceremonial Guard will ever get. I have three summers myself working at Ceremonial Guard, two of them including working as a sentry. I have a tour overseas where I carried a rifle with ammunition as if it were clothing.
1: The reservists making up the bulk of the guardsmen are by no stretch of the imagination 'highly trained'. Decently, sure, but the training a reservist will get will usually comprise a part time course lasting ten or so weekends, and then two months of full time training, the vast majority of which will be utterly irrelevant to downtown Ottawa. They have nothing even close to the training Ottawa Police officers will have.
2: A sentry will be stuck standing at ease staring straight forward. Cpl Cirillo was shot in the back by someone neither he nor the other sentry laid eyes on before shots were fired. You never, ever give ammunition to someone who can't keep their heads on a swivel and/or are protected by adequate lethal overwatch from another tactical element. Giving two guards who must face eyes front a magazine of rounds just means someone can walk up, pop them in the back of the head and now have two functional C7 rifles with high capacity magazines. No thanks.
3: The vast majority of sentries have no experience in use of force training in a domestic context, and few will have been to war or carried live ammunition in anything but very tightly controlled range settings. The risk of error is frankly significantly greater than the risk inherent in not arming the sentries.
I'll be blunt; I think given the state of our military the entire Ceremonial Guard should be scrapped and the soldiers re-roled into training for their primary job, If we had the luxury of a military that was funded and manned where it needed to be we could afford things like CG and the Snowbirds, but it's not. However if we insist on this wasteful public relations spectacle, then give the troops proper security. On the streets of a Canadian city, that means police officers who have the appropriate training and tools to properly handle the wide variety of situations that may arise. Ottawa Police Service is the force with appropriate jurisdiction, though I'd be equally content with military police if the appropriate memorandums of understanding were in place.
At the end of the day, to argue for giving the sentries ammunition and expecting that to solve the problem merely betrays one's utter ignorance of what they actually do, what their role is, and how a tactical situation actually works.
Ignorance abounds in the replies to this. I am a reservist. I have both received and instructed on the majority of training that most reservists working at Ceremonial Guard will ever get. I have three summers myself working at Ceremonial Guard, two of them including working as a sentry. I have a tour overseas where I carried a rifle with ammunition as if it were clothing.
1: The reservists making up the bulk of the guardsmen are by no stretch of the imagination 'highly trained'. Decently, sure, but the training a reservist will get will usually comprise a part time course lasting ten or so weekends, and then two months of full time training, the vast majority of which will be utterly irrelevant to downtown Ottawa. They have nothing even close to the training Ottawa Police officers will have.
2: A sentry will be stuck standing at ease staring straight forward. Cpl Cirillo was shot in the back by someone neither he nor the other sentry laid eyes on before shots were fired. You never, ever give ammunition to someone who can't keep their heads on a swivel and/or are protected by adequate lethal overwatch from another tactical element. Giving two guards who must face eyes front a magazine of rounds just means someone can walk up, pop them in the back of the head and now have two functional C7 rifles with high capacity magazines. No thanks.
3: The vast majority of sentries have no experience in use of force training in a domestic context, and few will have been to war or carried live ammunition in anything but very tightly controlled range settings. The risk of error is frankly significantly greater than the risk inherent in not arming the sentries.
I'll be blunt; I think given the state of our military the entire Ceremonial Guard should be scrapped and the soldiers re-roled into training for their primary job, If we had the luxury of a military that was funded and manned where it needed to be we could afford things like CG and the Snowbirds, but it's not. However if we insist on this wasteful public relations spectacle, then give the troops proper security. On the streets of a Canadian city, that means police officers who have the appropriate training and tools to properly handle the wide variety of situations that may arise. Ottawa Police Service is the force with appropriate jurisdiction, though I'd be equally content with military police if the appropriate memorandums of understanding were in place.
At the end of the day, to argue for giving the sentries ammunition and expecting that to solve the problem merely betrays one's utter ignorance of what they actually do, what their role is, and how a tactical situation actually works.
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JS2218 said:
To add to what George mentioned about taking a "Bio Break", one may have been on a meal break.
"will work the same hours as the ceremonial guards, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday to Friday."
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tomahawk6 said:
It has been described as a "tough job".
"They sometimes had to deal with loud drunks, boorish visitors, pushy parents, roving vandals, torrential downpours and sweltering heat, all the while keeping their cool, their calm and their dignity."
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/sentries-at-national-war-memorial-endured-abuse-disrespect-1.3018109
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In the US we have a number of memorials that are not formally guarded,except by armed Park Rangers and are brightly lit at night.The Tomb of The Unknown on the other hand is on a military installation which makes security for visitors and the sentinels easier.
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cupper said:
Seen from another angle:
https://postmediaottawacitizen2.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/an-ottawa-police-officer-stands-watch-over-the-ceremonial-gu.jpg?quality=55&strip=all&w=660&h=495&crop=1
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Not a "bad" idea, but looks kinda funny, on the grounds of a national monument. We're not talking Buckingham Palace, after all... Are they going to issue the fuzzy tall hats, too? 
blackberet17 said:Not a "bad" idea, but looks kinda funny, on the grounds of a national monument. We're not talking Buckingham Palace, after all... Are they going to issue the fuzzy tall hats, too?
Yes.
https://www.google.ca/search?q=ceremonial+guard+at+cenotaph&biw=1680&bih=919&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=zClBVfGjONH3yQTu_YDACg&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ#imgrc=a2TGC1QEsFNIOM%253A%3BM-X12zCrpUZS0M%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fi.ytimg.com%252Fvi%252Fc8GDl8Idxv0%252Fmaxresdefault.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.youtube.com%252Fwatch%253Fv%253Dc8GDl8Idxv0%3B1920%3B1080
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