This infuriates me. BTW, the father of the young man is my daughters teacher in high school.

https://video.foxnews.com/v/6114557391001#sp=show-clips

I guess they figure a gun-free zone also applies to guards as well.

The top 5 people in charge of that base, need to spend sometime in a prison.

The link says "ACCESS DENIED - You don't have permission to visit this site."

Okay.

L.W.

That's SOP................my son is also in the Navy; none of the sailors who routinely stand watch have weapons at any of the bases, at least at the 2 he's been stationed at.

MM

Isn't standing watch and standing guard two different things?


My buddy said that the Marine security guards were armed.

WTF. I walked guard duty with a loaded M14

So Guard is now a Demonrat word for Target.

Got it.

When I heard about it, I thought it was a bit odd that the Sheriff's Dept. had to come out and take charge of the situation.

My opinion,...a military base should have it's own security,...armed and well trained.

As I understand it, he was standing watch over securing the building's entrance. I realize the Navy "stands watch" over everything, but standing watch over the buildings entrance = security guard to me.

I was just at Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey (prior to Pensacola shooting) the entrence to the base was guarded by armed DOD employees. PA also has an armed police force. WTF is up with the Navy?

Here's a brief article about one of the other Sailors killed.


SAVANNAH, Ga. — Fresh out of boot camp, Cameron Walters proudly told his father in Georgia during their nightly video chat that he had passed the exam qualifying him to stand watch and help secure building entrances at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida.

When news broke the next morning of shots being fired at the base, Shane Walters called his son’s cellphone repeatedly throughout the day. There was no answer. The 21-year-old airmen apprentice from Richmond Hill had been killed along with two other sailors by a gunman authorities later identified as a military aviation student from Saudi Arabia.

Shane Walters told The Associated Press on Sunday that his son died standing watch at the classroom building where the shooter opened fire.

“He was just looking forward to getting his wings and being a part of flying and whatever job they gave him,” Shane Walters said. “He just wanted to earn his wings. He was looking so forward to having those wings pinned on his chest.”

You'd never see that in Israel.

Ft. Hood would never have happened in Israel. In the first place, they wouldn't have a Muzzy as a Major in the Medical Corps.

AND, by the time a perp did get off a shot, maybe two, he'd be riddled in a cross fire from several Uzi's.

This P.C. stuff is getting good people killed.

Soldiers, some with multiple combat tours, can't carry a weapon. At least in combat, they can return fire.

DF

In the case of the watch they were standing in the schools command, it is essentially logging in and guiding visitors to the right place, keeping track of key personnel, ensuring offices are secured (when people turn in keys), manning the phone and in off duty hours making sure the building is secure (from fire/theft) and in an emergency initiating the recall/personnel accountability recall list and ensuring colors are raised and lowered. . There are other duties but that's 90% of it.

There is also a certain amount of training going on to teach young officers and sailors how to stand a watch since it is a very junior watch position for both officer and enlisted. This is often the first watch that they have ever stood and people do need training for more important/empowered watches that they will stand later in their careers. As the watch officer, it is likely your first time leading enlisted in a formal role.

This was Schools Command. This watch has been stood for decades by generations of Naval Aviators and Naval Flight Officer students and nothing even remotely close has ever happened. Like 9/11, another game changer driven by tragedy. Every one of us that has proudly worn gold wings, officer and enlisted aircrew have walked the halls of that building and undergone training there. If there is a physical nexus of Naval Aviation it is building 633.

Thanks for the insight Pugs.

When I was in the Army in the mid 80's, we often pulled guard duty on training deployments, guarding the building where our weapons and ammunition were stored, with empty rifles. Rifle and magazine, extra mags but no ammunition. We always thought it was stupid but we were low ranking enlisted and had to follow orders.

The services in general are at all time low manning levels. The USN has about 277K Sailors - at any given time 1/3 are on sea duty on ships and deployed (90-95 ships are deployed at any given time). You then have a lot in training that also do stand some watches, people on leave, people that are not of the correct grade to stand a gate watch etc.

The reality is the services (all of them) use DoD and Contract guards a lot to free their enlisted and officers for their primary duties. Fort Meade has contract guards for most of the entrances and that is typical.

There was a time when lots of duties on base were handled by draftees/shytbirds. Mowing, cleaning, maintenance, chow halls etc. In the volunteer service in a good economy reality is there are not enough people in the services to do those jobs plus the critical service jobs. Those jobs are contracted out now. The services fight to keep their good people and telling a young airman/seaman that we value their work is rarely highlighted by sending them off to someplace where they told they get to do something non-rewarding that didn't sign up for. Sure, it's still done and part of being in the service but less and less as every body is potentially valuable and trainable.

God rest that Warriors Soul.

Not unusual... But maybe, in today's world, they should be... When I stood some base watch duty at one of the Navy schools in '67, I had a radio, a duty belt, and not a damned thing else..

And even then bored sailors get in trouble. Our line watch at NAS Whidbey on mids was armed with a nightstick - He then decided to go whack all the lower VHF/UHF antennas off on all our squadrons airplanes as well as the next squadron...... Didn't work out well for him.

I've been on base in Camp Lejeune in NC several times and I've been on base at Pensacola once. Every single time the guards checking each and every vehicle entering Camp Lejeune were armed, usually with holstered M9's but at times they had slung M4's. Pensacola entrance was like meeting the greeter at Walmart, at least at the entrance I used, which I don't recall as being the main entrance. I could never understand the difference between the two.

Same here.

Walked perimeter of a VERY active AHA on a major stateside post with only a wooden baton. 7 day duty, locked down in secure barracks away from assigned unit. Two lane county road was just outside west perimeter chain link. NO FIREARM! SF guys laughed at me as they dropped off their unused ordinance and ammo. I pointed out they were unarmed as well. We all laughed.

It was always up to the higher-higher as to procedure. Seems they always focused on the issued sidearms/rifles and pocket knives, but often forgot about the other inventory. I look back in amazement things did not go sideways more often than they did.

Strong salute to those who have paid the ultimate price in their duty to their country. May they never be forgotten.

It's been decades, but my only state side guard duty was around a bomb facility within a USN airfield. A presence only with no arms. In Nam, both barracks and airfield watches were armed with full magazines, but few had any expertise in handling such.

Nope,standing watch you are not armed.At the entrance to the base they are standing guard and they are strapping what ever pistol they use now.

The sub base in New London used private security guards and a tv reporter was able to get onto the pier where they tied up the nuke sub. This was several years ago and i am not sure if anything has changed.

It may be time for a Presidential Executive Order that all personnel assigned watch or guard duty on all military bases be armed and trained in their use. It is utterly stupid for someone on watch or guard duty to not be able to defend themselves and protect what they are watching or guarding.

Military should be armed and protecting at all times.

Doesn’t make sense at all. Mall cops are better armed.

When I was at Ft Leonard Wood in '70, we walked guard duty with night sticks. The only armed guards were at the post bank and the PX. Military bases have been disarmed for many years. Remember how well that worked out at Ft Hood?

Nonsense. This is my business and ALL Navy Civilian Guards and Master At Arms folks are armed with an M4 with three 40 round mags and an M9 with three fifteen round mags. Midshipman Watson was standing the Quarterdeck Watch (probably) at building 633 (Naval Aviation Schools Command) which is an unarmed post.

According to the Washington Times it was BJ Clinton who disarmed the military at there own installations.


Time after time, public murder sprees occur in “gun-free zones” - public places where citizens are not legally able to carry guns. The list is long, including massacres at Virginia Tech and Columbine High School along with many less deadly attacks. Last week’s slaughter at Fort Hood Army base in Texas was no different - except that one man bears responsibility for the ugly reality that the men and women charged with defending America were deliberately left defenseless when a terrorist opened fire.

Among President Clinton’s first acts upon taking office in 1993 was to disarm U.S. soldiers on military bases. In March 1993, the Army imposed regulations forbidding military personnel from carrying their personal firearms and making it almost impossible for commanders to issue firearms to soldiers in the U.S. for personal protection. For the most part, only military police regularly carry firearms on base, and their presence is stretched thin by high demand for MPs in war zones.

Because of Mr. Clinton, terrorists would face more return fire if they attacked a Texas Wal-Mart than the gunman faced at Fort Hood, home of the heavily armed and feared 1st Cavalry Division. That’s why a civilian policewoman from off base was the one whose marksmanship ended Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan’s rampage.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/11/end-clinton-era-military-base-gun-ban/

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 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.

Jorge, do the civilian guards carry 3 - 40 round magazine or 30 round magazine for the M4's? If it is 40 round magazines, what brand if you don't mind me asking?

The Peace Time mindset, post Viet Nam, of the 1970s is still alive and well. I was a young Marine Stationed at Marine Barracks Rota, Spain, aboard the Naval Station which hosted a nuclear Submarine repair facility, in the early 1970s. Our main mission was to provide security for the movement and storage of the boomer ballistic missiles from the pier to the on base magazine. Our standing orders did not allow us to have magazines loaded into our Colt or Remington 1911s nor our M-14s while standing our 24-7 posts. We all locked and loaded, anyway, once we reached our posts, and there were some accidental discharges. I personally was responsible for an accidental discharge of my 1911 in the wee hours after midnight. It now seems ludicrous that the flag officers in charge of setting security policy in the Marine Corps back then would sign off on such a ridiculous policy as that, but it has persevered. Someone mentioned the Beirut attack (I lost a close friend of the family in that one) where the same inane policy was in force, which cost us dearly. Even President Reagan was not in tune with the sheer stupidity of such a policy put in place by the "peacetime" flag officers.

I do not remember ever standing a watch without strapping on a 1911 45 with two 7 round magazines and accounting for every bullet when I accepted the watch and when I was relieved. Watch meant quarterdeck watch in port and prior to E4 it meant walking a post guarding a facility of some sort.

Not that the 45 was going to save my ass. I fired dozens of them and most were less precise than flinging rocks. For most of my time my standard plan of action should I need to use that thing was to get as close as possible and then shoot until I was out of bullets and lastly to fling the damn 45 as hard as I could at the person I was shooting at and then run for help.

Kind of embarrassing, if I may be so bold as to say.

This is correct, it was an EO by the scumbag clinton....

Ft Bragg, N.C. in the mid 1970s had a number of facilities with overnight guard watches. Most of these guards carried an unloaded 1911a1 with one loaded magazine in a pouch.

The Military Police on post carried a 1911a1 with one 5 round mag loaded, and one 5 round mag in reserve. Policy dictated that the chamber be empty while holstered. Many followed that policy.

In reality the rules changed with each new Provost Marshal, and sometimes with each oncoming duty officer. There were far fewer mishaps than there might have been.

Ditto - when I was topside watch on the subs we had the same items issued..

But that was not the case when I was on base..

All personnel except for muzzies and dimocraps and commies, but I repeat myself.

Clinton should be sued, then hung.

Bofum.

A guy I worked (LEO)with had served in the Navy. When he was going through firearms training he had no clue as to what was the muzzle or magazine of his freshly issued Glock 22. Even after his mandatory classroom training to familiarize himself with his Glock.
At the range we got him up and running. I asked him what type of weapon(s) was he trained on in the Navy. His response “I never fired a gun in the Navy”. I thought he was just fooling around. He told me that he never fired any weapon in the Navy and that included basic training.
I was floored.

This post somes it up rather precisely IMO.

I worked the gates and other on-base posts at Camp Pendleton in late 1971 or early 1972 as an MP. While on duty I carried a 1911A1 with one mag and 5 bullets. Checked it out and back in at the Provost Marshal armory going on and off duty. You had better come back off your duty post with 5 rounds. Our Sergeant kept a stash of ammo, so if you worked one of the posts out in the boondocks and cranked off a round at a coyote, he’d give you a replacement round. I was a PFC or Lance Corporal back then.

I remember that we did have a round chambered, since we had to clear the weapon upon return to the armory.

Only nervous moment we ever had was when a PX or whatever got robbed and a car with armed robbers was heading toward our gate. I was wishing for more than 5 rounds at the time. They didn’t make it to our gate.

I get the feeling that most of the Stateside military doesn’t get much weapon training these days. A granddaughter married a Captain in the Army Rangers, and they came to visit, and the guy was not a very good shot. He said they don’t shoot much. I’m thinking the NCO’s can shoot, but the officers drink coffee.

Another young lady brought her fiancé to visit, and he was with SWAT in a big city. He was impressive. He outshot me with just about every rifle and handgun I have. That guy could shoot. I guess they practice.

So insane. Reminds me of the Marines, during the Beirut truck bombing, having been required to carry unloaded M-16 rifles to guard their base of operations in 1984.

Wow, issued nightsticks and flashlights.


What, no brass knuckles?

Me too. And a m9

in the 70's, I was supposed to carry a completely unloaded .45, guarding nuke misses that were "not' in S korea. I was 150 miles from one of the "hottest" borders in the world, and if somebody had made a scene, we could have been unable to deny that we had the nukes there.Nobody's M15 was loaded, either. The mags were full of sand and stuffed sideways into the pouches (20 rders) cause you could get in one more mag that way. It would tear out your fingernails to extract a mag, I am not kidding! Something like melting the warheads by dousing the solid rocked fuel bodies with diesel fuel and setting them alight would have caused major problems for the US, and could easily have been done. Some of my buddies were much closer to the DMZ and said the same thing. I put the mag in the 1911 and left the chamber empty cause I was constantly working on my draws, mag swaps, dryfiring and cycling the slide. I was a dog handler at an ADA Nike Hercules site, Brigade HQ was at Camp Humphries, K6. Dog handlers work only at night, and we had no lifers around. at 9 pm, the Katusa on guard at the gate to the launcher site had no key to let anyone in. All he could do was call the Green Ready room and the SOG would drive a jeep down there and let in any officers, etc, who he personally knew (and nobody else) We'd tie up the dogs and go to sleep. It was the same all over Korea. They are more afraid of negligent firings, and nut-jobs/drunks shooting someone than they are enemy attacks. My partner (I was not with him) managed to put a .45 rd down his leg one night. He was back on crutches the next day and was fine in a month or so. I know of another such .45 case, same result. I also know of a couple of .22 hits to the legs, which almost ruined guy's lives. took them many months to be able to walk right again..

Hey, that is interesting.

Some day you are going to make a blow-up doll very lucky.

I don`t know where he went through basic,but at Great Lakes we were trained with 1911A1s and Garands.

So, Jorge, do you know how many armed personnel were close to the building at the time of the attack?

If none, then why so?

MM

Well, get back in your time capsule, Rambo-light. Today not only are all armed personnel ordered to carry in Condition One, but ROEs have been opened up, allowing for much greater flexibility.

I do not. This much I can tell you. Police HQ is about a quarter mile away and there at least three mobile patrols plus a Watch Commander, all within three to five minutes from anywhere on base and in my view, they FAILED miserably.

In the AF the guards are armed. This makes no sense why the Navy doesn't do that.

Ctsmith: Thanks for that link/info!
Sad.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

NAS Pensacola has a history of being firearm friendly. When I was stationed there back in the early 1990s, you could advertise your personal firearms for sale in the base newspaper. I bought my 1974 Walther PP from a guy in base housing. Saw his ad in the base paper, called him, then drove over and picked it up, cash and carry. No paperwork, no muss, no fuss. But we were both red-blooded Americans, so there was never any problem. The Clinton's put a stop to that however. Lots of communists and foreigners roaming about now. Everyone is at risk. Just think about all the murders of our GIs committed in Afghanistan by "supposed" friendly muzzies.

I was in the AF for almost 6 years before I had any sort of firearms training with live fire. In Basic Training, we were introduced to the M1 Carbine and spent a rainy day in the barracks learning to strip and reassemble, memorize parts of the carbine, etc. We were supposed to go to the range for a day to fire, but were in the tail end of a huge tropical storm, entire base was flooded, real gully washer so range day was cancelled. In 1964 I was in Japan and got a 6 month TDY to Thailand and Laos so we fired the M1 Carbine before going. Got down there and found that we absolutely could NOT have any firearms whatsoever, some treaty thing.

Holy crap!

Those were the sorriest excuse for weapons I ever saw. At one base the CO wanted to start a pistol team for quasi local competition with other bases. They decided I was the guy who would be best to do it. They gave me boxes (big cases that oranges got shipped in) full of 1911s. Couldn't hardly lift the damn boxes. Cases and cases of ammo. I spent a few days trying to find enough of them to make a team's worth. We had no armorer. We didn't even have a gunners mate. We did not have a machine shop I could use. I had to soak a bunch of the damn things in diesel fuel to get them to where they could be shot for testing. Not a one of them was accurate enough for competition, and most couldn't hit paper at 25 feet. If I could have found 10 that were sort of accurate I could have taken them into town where I knew a gunsmith with the tools get them on paper. I never did fire any of the watch duty 1911s I carried, but based on what those orange boxes showed me I sure as hell wasn't going to bet anything on them firing much less accurately.

Of all the weapons the USN gave me to shoot, I liked only three. M1s and Model 12s. Both were dependable and both were accurate enough for their purposes. 1922 Springfields were uniformly very accurate and I would gladly have bought one if I could have.

Y'all talking about in peacetime military not being exposed much to small arms training, I've got a better story than that. My father joined the navy in 1942. He spent his time until discharged in 1945 in the Pacific. In 1944 and 45 a good bit of time was on Jap contested islands repairing landing craft. He said that they were rushed through boot camp in San Diego so fast that small arms training was skipped entirely. He never had a single day of rifle or pistol training, not even drill. When he became a petty officer and had watch duty, he was issued a .45 for the watch and told how to load and fire it, but never had any practice at all. However, he was trained on 20 mm, 40 mm, and 3 in. guns. I have always thought that very odd.

As one member pointed out, it wasn't "guards" that got shot - it was a guy "standing watch", i.e. a "front desk clerk" for the day.
Even at Camp Lejeune or Ft. Bragg, once you pass through the front gate, you see few, if any, armed security on the rest of the base. You can drive all over the place and only a limited number of areas have armed security protection.

Fresh out of boot camp, Cameron Walters proudly told his father in Georgia during their nightly video chat that he had passed the exam qualifying him to stand watch and help secure building entrances at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida.

When news broke the next morning of shots being fired at the base, Shane Walters called his son’s cellphone repeatedly throughout the day. There was no answer. The 21-year-old airmen apprentice from Richmond Hill had been killed.....

That's Heartbreaking ☹️

personally I have no words, but plenty of disgust to go around for everyone...

Every soldier should carry a side arm on a military installation as far as I am concerned...
or use the same standards, that were used on Bases during WW2...

It also pisses me off that this Saudi was able to buy a Glock off base in FLA without being an American citizen..

The democRATs want to disarm Americans, but I guess foreign nationals isn't a problem...WTF is with that..

how does a foreign national pass a background check, like the rest of us have to?????

especially a Muslim Foreign National....military or not.

I was an ADA MP at Site Summit Alaska in the mid 70's. We carried an M16 empty and a 45 with 5 rounds. We also carried 3 magazines of 20 rounds for the M16's and 2 more 5 round 45 magazines. We could not lock and load unless there was a real threat but on night shift we would lovk and load the 45's. I was at Ft Sam Houston prior to going to Alaska and we carried 3 45 magazines with one in the gun but we couldn't lock and load. Ft Sam was an open post back then.

kwg

The military is anti-gun. Personnel are expendable.

The USN Small arms program has a rich history of ignored to decent. In Aviation Officer Candidate School in 87 we qualified with .38 Revolvers in a traditional 25 yard range with one handed formal shooting with instruction from our USMC Drill Instructors. Fun, especially for those of us that knew a bit about shooting but pretty much completely useless for what we might need a pistol for.

Desert Storm was a wake up call. We were issued 5 shot S&W .38's from Crane Naval Depot that had been packed in 1972 and were still in cosmoline. Despite direction otherwise, our air wing commander said "carry what you want" I carried a BHP, my pilot carried a Glock, the 0-4 in our crew carried the .38 and the new Lt(jg) carried the .38 but didn't load it because "loaded guns are dangerous".

For rifles the USN had zero programs. My squadron flew down to Beale AFB and traded squadron patches and hats to the USAF guys and got qualed there.

Circa 95 we started getting issued the Sig M11. Nice pistol and better yet we got to qual under some good instruction at NAS Anacosta. Full drills with reloads and off hands and different positions and from cover. Much improved and we got to do it every year. We only carried when deployed in a combat zone and when home the pistols lived in the armory.

At Naval Station Mayport, guards at the main gate are armed with sidearms and wear body armor. There is always at least one person off to the side with a rifle. Once on the base, to access the piers, there is another set of gate guards with sidearms and rifles.
Security at Naval Air Station Jacksonville doesn’t seem as tight. The main gates don’t seem to have the same requirements. Maybe it’s a NAVSEA vs. NAVAIR thing?

There was a definite "sea change" after 9/11 with the incorporation of Anti-Terrorism/Force Protection (ATFP) training in place. The Navy now makes just about ALL sailors qualify at lest twice/year as they are all incorporated into the Auxiliary Support Force (ASF) at every unit and tenant commands at all bases are required to support the base with these folks. As an example in 2002 when we deployed to OEF on board JFK, both Ship's company and the Air Wing expended about 50K rounds of 9mm on board ship. We used targets set up on Elevator #4 (port side, aft) as a target range. The problem is, thanks to the bureaucracy and TOO MANY government civilians and their rice bowls, they've made training so bureaucratic intensive (along with all the PC bullshit training), that the majority of personnel are all but worthless.

They are all held to the same standard by Commander, Naval Installations Command. Kings Bay has a combination of contract guards at all Entry Control Points and USN Master At Arms police as well as DON civilian police, but the "real stuff" is guarded by a reinforced Battalion of USMC, and the Marines REALLY train.

Those folks need hanging.

One of the funny things with the qual at Anacosta was we had to spend two hours in the classroom on the "when deadly force is authorized" section. Let's see, if I have my pistol in my hand it means I've ejected and I'm down behind enemy lines. I assure you, deadly force is authorized.

That goes EXACTLY to my point. The bureaucratic machinations we have to go through here to keep my guys qualified are INSANE..

Most of the guys I served with could not shoot. Not even a little bit. We did shoot guns, all manner of guns on at least an annual basis over in the combat zone. Not everyone shot more than either a 1911 or an M1. Few shot both and very few shot the other weapons we had available. I lead the damage assessment team if we had to go ashore to see what the 5 inch 54s accomplished and I had 4 other people with me plus a MWB coxwain. I chose them, their weapons and made sure they could shoot them. We had a few gunners mates, but they were not any of them small arms people. Most of them were mechanics to keep the mounts operating and the actual operation of the mounts when we were firing.

Basically everywhere I went in those years the guys I worked with were about like your average civilian. Officers and enlisted alike. I kept my personal weapons in a safe in the guard house on shore station and in the small arms locker on ship. I am all but certain I was the only person at any command where I was billeted who even had personal weapons of any kind. When I kept a car I could park it just outside the main gate and most of the time when I did so I left whatever weapon I had out in the car. If we had marines as part of the complement THEY could shoot at least respectably. For those years I really knew very few people who were competent with a weapon and at least 95% of the guys I served with wouldn't have known what ammo to put in which weapon, not even a clue. It would not have surprised me at all to see some people I worked with or officers I served under try to put 22 lr ammo into an M1.

So did I, except with the late, great M1 Garand ... and one "clip of eight."

L.W.

This ^ - big difference between "Guard duty" and standing watch or "CQ" (Charge of Quarters).

When I was in, we had duty days which meant that certain specific tasks that had to be performed on duty days included watches. A watch was at a specific place for normally 4 hours at a time. A watch meant you made certain anyone entering your area of watch was authorized and not unauthorized. If your watch post was a building, no one entered the building or the area without proper paperwork and if you did not challenge properly you could very well find yourself in a minor fecal matter storm and with an OOD reprimand in your record.

Duty meant crap work details that were done in addition to your watch assignments. Duty tasks generally took a couple of hours at the most.

Watch posts were armed posts. Duty work was almost always unarmed.

Watch posts on a ship were almost exclusively quarterdeck and OOD in port only. OOD at sea was unarmed and there was no quarterdeck watch.

Certain tasks done with certain equipment were required by Navy regs to have at least one armed escort regardless of at sea or in port and without regard to time of day.

I was on barracks watch one night with a 1903 Springfield (no ammo present) and I was really sick. I passed out and lay there unconscious until my hourly report was missed at which point the OOD showed up and kicked and stomped me until he figured out I was unconscious and not sleeping. At that point he called an ambulance and I woke up the next day in the hospital where I spent the next week.

Oddly perhaps, the most critically secure places I worked in 4 years had elderly (like 80 yo) civilian security guards who wouldn't have made a competent mall cop. They had absolutely zero idea of what was important and who might have access much less what anything important consisted of. Had someone come through the gates with a gun they would have had a couple of heart attacks and the bad guys would have had free reign because there were no other guns accessible legally.

While I was in school, headquarters desk watch consisted of two guys armed with 1911s and an OOD also armed. Sole options for that watch after hours were to take any calls from the front gate or any of the building watch posts and if necessary start waking up command staff. Something I do not recall happening to anyone in a year. But, we had guns and bullets just in case.

https://www.nbcnews.com/video/video...hooting-victim-joshua-watson-74848325594

Holy fugging hell, pages of comments and only a few can grasp the difference between guard duty and standing a watch. Easy to tell who did and didn't serve their country.

I was just going to say the same thing!
There's so many f ukn armchair commanders on the internet, it's crazy.

Maybe 10 minutes for armed response at Pensacola:

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/...had-10-minutes-without-armed-resistance/