In the 1983 truck bombing of the Marine Barracks in Beirut that killed 221 marines the sentries of the compound were standing guard with unloaded weapons, they couldn’t do anything but watch the truck drive right by.
In the late 90’s I was stationed on a Naval Air Station and they switched to rent a cops for base security.
In my opinion the poor security on bases comes from an extremely risk adverse mentality in the leadership. If some PFC has a negligent discharge then the base CO will most likely get relieved of duty after the investigation so they solve the problem by having them unarmed or an empty weapon. They’re betting on the come that nothing is going to happen, until it does. Civilian cops have legal protection which allows them a pass for screw ups on the job, qualified immunity it’s called. The military doesn’t have that so a case of a sentry getting over zealous and shooting at somebody in a judgement error has repercussions all the way up the chain of command. A base commander is usually an O-6 that’s marking time I while he’s waiting to pin on a star so he doesn’t want any scandals on his watch. One way he ensures that is to disarm the guards. The security at most stateside bases now are basically traffic directors.
This post somes it up rather precisely IMO.
