Quote Originally Posted by Cannoneer No. 4 View Post
Other than amusing yourself, what useful purpose did you serve?
Did you mean what useful purpose did it serve or what useful purpose did I serve? I will assume you mean the former.

I will try to address your concerns the best I can. First, maybe childish and just for fun were bad choice phrases to use. There was necessity in doing this. First of all, we had a job to do and tasks to accomplish. Has one of my fellow Marines forgotten thier ID card and then when they returned to the FOB, only then did they realize that they did not have it. Sure...that thing could have possibly happened over the course of a deployment. So, now, we are posed with a delima. Do I try to explain for 15 minutes to a security guard that this Marine left his ID on the FOB, but verify to him...who has no authority over me or is not in my chain of command...that this is individual is in fact a United States Marine, even though this security guard can barely understand English. Or, do I make another choice. We're tired, hungry, and the sun is down. We may have returned to our FOB, but it will still be another serveral hours before we finally rack out. Do I really have time for this? By the mere fact that I could have pulled this off, shows the whole internal security situation to be a farce.

Second. There was no PMO. The first, MP unit to roll into our FOB arrived as we were preparing to leave. But, as you probably know, just being an MP unit doesn't make you PMO.

Third. I literally had about a hundred tasks to accomplish in a single day. What number do you think talking to the site manager was on my list?

After we were able to get through the first time this peaked my interest. So, we "tested" it a few more times. This was by no means a normal or everyday occurance. 99% of the time we went through the regular routine, all presenting our own valid cards, and proceeded about normally.

Maybe it would have been better to say it was an experiment born out of a situation that arose during a specific time period. I recall something similar to this happening in the news when agents smuggled bomb making materials through TSA checkpoints. Fortunately we had only ourselves and our equipment to bring through the gate.

Now that I'm back in the States I can address this issue. I assumed that taking it to a fourm for discussion would be a good starting point. Criticize the issue, but do not go into a personal attack.