Just an update on my gate guard post from last week...
My wife went to Army Community Service (ACS) a few days ago to check out the part time job listings. Apparently, the guy there tried to sell her on applying with the security company that is providing gate guards. He said they are starting people at $19/hour and that she could start immediately. Now the ACS guy might be misinformed. I hope that they are not hiring just anyone off the street and putting them on the gates right away. But this does make me think I was right that the guards currently employed have likely not received much training and the company does in fact have low minimum standards for whom they hire. They did hire the 50+ year old man and put him on shotgun duty.
I don't doubt that many of these guards are better suited for the duty than some of the soldiers we had on the gates before. As I said, in addition to the National Guardsmen that were activated for this duty, we had DLI casuals on the gates. Among these soldiers were the broke and injured, students that were failures in their classes, conscientious objectors awaiting discharge, and anyone not able to help usefully around the office. But as I stated over and over in the original post - soldiers guarded soldiers.
Now, we have this civilian company that according to the ACS guy, will hire anyone. Now, I know that the ACS guy is not the final authority, but I'm sure he's got a good idea of what the security company is willing to hire. It would only take a couple of complaints by people who were not hired after being sent to apply for this guy to not have an idea of what was acceptable. My wife is not a citizen (yet) and has been described physically as skinny (I describe her as beautiful). Neither of those points are bad things, but I don't know that they make her suitable for guarding a military installation. If they would be willing to hire her, they will probably hire other people that are equally unsuitable.