MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Va. - In a departure from their usual schedule of formal, choreographed ceremonies, the Marines of the Quantico Band and the Ceremonial Platoon will train next month to search vehicles, secure crime scenes, fire handguns and shotguns, and fight through the pain of a face full of pepper spray.
A base order due out this week establishes the band and the Ceremonial Platoon as Marine Corps Base Quantico’s first official Security Augmentation Force, trained and ready to supplement the Provost Marshal’s Office in times of heightened security.
When force protection conditions are raised based on possible threats, military police officers’ tasks vastly increase as they may need to inspect every vehicle coming onto the installation and check mission-critical areas of the base, as well as perform additional duties, said Police Chief Joe Riley.
“This will give us the flexibility and manpower to do things like that,” he said.
Riley said security levels can be raised due to events at home, such as a presidential inauguration, or on the other side of the world, such as the capture of Saddam Hussein.
“It’s not a regular occurrence, but the hard thing is, you don’t know when it’s going to happen, and when it does, you need manpower very quickly,” Riley said.
The new base order brings security in line with Marine Corps Order 5530.16, issued in August 2011, which mandated the creation of security augmentation forces at all installations. These are separate from the long-term individual augments that base and tenant commands have long supplied to supplement the base’s military police force.
However, as the Quantico SAF-to-be, members of the band and Ceremonial Platoon have to go through the same two-week, 80-hour block training as the long-term augments. Their training is scheduled to begin Jan. 14.
The band was an obvious choice for an augment, as band members’ secondary mission is security, said Master Gunnery Sgt. Jeffery Fangman, the bandmaster.
“It’s pretty much our role in a combat zone anyway,” he said, noting that some band members have already had military police training and are looking forward to seeing their bandmates go through it.
Staff Sgt. Evans Janvier, staff noncommissioned officer in charge of the Ceremonial Platoon, said his unit does not have security as an official secondary mission. But he said his Marines were eager to change their routine and get new training.
“It’s going to be some good training, getting Marines back to doing what they do — shooting weapons and getting out there and taking care of business,” Janvier said.
After the training, the SAF Marines will stand duty at least once a quarter to maintain familiarity with their security jobs, said Peter Russett, director of the base’s Mission Assurance Branch, adding that the goal is for all of them to stand duty at once.
Riley said the Provost Marshal’s Office plans to take advantage of those days to train, present a show of force at the gates or run security for events. The first quarterly SAF training day is scheduled to let many of the military police participate in an active-shooter training exercise in the spring.
In the future, Russett said, “As new people check in and check out (of the band and Ceremonial Platoon), they’ll periodically have the block training again.”
Previously, he said, the base has relied on short-term augments from Headquarters and Service Battalion or the Reserves in times of heightened security, “but there were no extra people trained and ready to augment the police department just for higher (force protection conditions).”
Fangman noted that many of the Marines in the band will eventually use the training when they’re deployed and have to run security duties.
“The more that we can have Marines trained across the spectrum of what Marines are responsible for, the better,” he said.
In the shorter term, he said the band members are just excited to get new training.
“It’s Marines doing Marine things,” Fangman said. “You put a weapon in a Marine’s hands and tell them it’s time to go train, and what other reaction are you going to get besides, ‘Ooh-rah!’?”
| Date Taken: |
12.20.2012 |
| Date Posted: |
12.20.2012 15:09 |
| Story ID: |
99615 |
| Location: |
QUANTICO , VIRGINIA, US |
| Web Views: |
125 |
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0 |
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This work, Band, Ceremonial Platoon become first Security Augmentation Force, by Michael DiCicco, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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