Who?

[decemberrain]

Who guards your bases/fort etc. front gate?
Ours is patrolled by locals with DoD jobs. I understand hiring from the local community for the commissary or housing office but I think its strange that Security Forces aren't in control of the gate..

[YellowRose]

Why do you think it's strange? There are a limited number of Warfighters. Why not use contracted support instead of Warfighters to protect installations so that Warfighters can be used elsewhere?

DoD Police take care of most installations. The only one I can think of that uses MPs is the installation that houses the MP school.

[ilovecandy]

We have a mixture of security forces and DOD contractors. There is usually at least one of each at each gate.

[JakJak]

We had all DoD until the AF took over, now we have some AF security along with civilians.

[ggirl]

both. MP's from base and contractors I think? I remember H telling me that usually the over night shift is civilians.

[Dory1988]

We have both. DH had a few friends who were MP's. The way they talked, they welcomed the help. A lot of DOD gate guards are prior MP's anyway. At least, they were at our base.

[booyah]

This is a much higher-level issue than just at the bases. It comes from Congressional funding and high-level military decisions. The civilians at the gates are typically contractors that have been awarded a contract. The two largest companies that provide this are based in Alaska (minority-owned companies, women-owned companies, etc get a these contracts over better qualified/cheaper contractors because they are statutorily set-aside for them.) Lots of people don't know this, but government contracting is literally in part a welfare program. That is part of the stated language in the congressional laws regarding it. 8a contracts are the specific set-asides. I used to do govt contracts as an attorney for the government and it is eye-opening and dismaying to see the ways the government is taken advantage of in part, and blows taxpayer money in part.

[basilosaurus]

It was a local contract until 1 Oct. Then it switched to sf. Guess they had a money issue.

It doesn't seem weird at all to me. Sf has incredibly high deployment rates, and they're trained to be more than just gate guards. Outsourcing that job seems an appropriate use of resources.

I do wish the contractors knew not to salute me.

[Deleted]

We have both. And usually if someone gets washed out, they do SF for awhile and they have to work the gate.

[amaristella]

Everywhere that we have been so far has been a mix. The only way in which it bothers me is that the contractors sometimes do this half-assed salute at my car like they're not sure if they should. Either salute my car or don't. Anything in between looks moronic. If you're not sure if you should, ffs ask someone.

And for what it's worth, there are much more important places and things on DH's base that need guarding, and those are the places where they hand-pick the guards and make sure to use actual Navy sailors. To me this is an intelligent use of resources.

[decemberrain]

I think it's strange because they let their friends on base all the time and no one cares enough to stop it. It just makes me kinda upset because I've watched some of the guards let people on base with no stickers or temp. pass on their car and they just wave them through. I was driving onto base for a week with an expired temp. pass on my car until a security forces guy stopped me and pointed it out and had me turn around to get a new one from the visitors center. One of my friends showed her drivers licence to one of the guards and he let her on base.
I guess it's strange to me because most bases I've been on they have mostly Security Forces and maybe a few civilians here it's mostly civilians and once and awhile a Security Forces person.

[amaristella]

It sounds to me like either the gate people need additional training to make sure that the rules are being implemented properly or that maybe your base is supposed to be an open base? I know of one near me where they do screen visitors just to make sure that you have a good reason to be there but stickers are not required on your car and you don't have to have a military ID to be authorized for entry.

If it's none of the above and the gate people really aren't doing their job to me that isn't necessarily a reflection of their military status so much as security being much too relaxed. Is there someone that you could bring it up with?

[erin2903]

Ours is a mixture but mostly SFs.

[decemberrain]

It's not an open base. On Guam everything as a little corrupt so I'm just surprised they don't keep the gate guarded by military members. I was just wondering though because I didn't know if this was the norm. In Texas Lackland and Shepphard were both guarded by S.F. In Arizona Fort Huachuca and in N.Y Fort Drum both had MP's at the gate.
I could talk to someone but I don't think it would help very much. Members of my husbands shop have complained so many times about it and it doesn't seem to help. They say that they are required to contract certain jobs out to the locals because that's part of the agreement that we have with them for keeping the base here.
A few months back there was a local guy at the food court not affiliated with the military at all and he walked up to a old veteran and stabbed him. The gate guards all got into trouble for that but nothing really changed.
I was just curious to see if it was pretty normal to have DoD workers on the gate. Guess so

[basilosaurus]

decemberrain, my experience overseas was that it was 100% SF or joint local forces. No civilians. But I've never been in an overseas American location, so maybe that's the difference.

I do know that stickers have been different everywhere I've lived. As has whether they scan your ID or not. Even on the same island, I've been scanned at some locations, not at others. And I've dealt with civilian at some and sf at others. I think unpredictability is the goal

[kpol]

Our gates are guarded by a large, private, multinational security company but I believe that will be changing shortly as their contract hasn't been renewed.