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Our son is at Ft. Myers in the early stages of formal training as a Sentinel at the Tomb. He called us last Friday on the verge of tears over a situation that had just happened.

Apparently, the local rent-a-cops have a boner for the 3IR Tomb Guards and regularly heckle them and try to provoke a response. Last week, one of Thomas's team had completed the 9 month training program and was 2 days from receiving his patch and being allowed to walk the Tomb.

He was in uniform and in a secluded area away from any public and a couple of the fat black unaccountable rent a cops started talking sh*t to him, calling the soldier a "faggot in a bus driver hat" etc and after some extended period of time this young Infantryman said "either get over here and say that in my face or go away and f*ck yourself". The fat black unaccountable DC rent a cop unfortunately had his video out and recorded the statement and then forwarded it to this young soldiers chain of command.

Two days from receiving his patch and after 9 months of 80 hour a week training he is summarily pulled from the Tomb. The boys heart is broken and unfortunately there is no option for appeal.

The SOG of the Sentinels word is absolute and nothing less than perfection is accepted from the Guards. A life above reproach where even the appearance of impropriety is unacceptable. There are no second chances.

This stupid jealous fat cop just broke this boy's heart and dashed his and his families dreams and went on his way with a smile.

Just not right.

Byron

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There will, however, be an accounting for the rent-a-cop one day. Doesn't make your story any less heart breaking but...

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To an extent I agree with Gary. Zero tolerance was set up for curbing the situtation in which this young man finds himself. There are always mitigating circumstances. Authorities who made the asinine decision without thorough investigation should
be held acountable and the young man reinstated. From what was explained it was a set up by incompetents who were not men enough to settle the situation face to face.Their vile language and obvious mentality warrants a good a??? whupping. Use the wording on the tape and go straight to the Gov. or highest authority to resolve this so it don't happen again. If those who first caused the problem are proved wrong let the tables fall on them and perhaps they might lose their jobs! What is the old military saying Chit rolls down hill!

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Maybe a call to his leadership (rental police) if the unit had a friend in the area to explain the hazing and the result of it caused.

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Or suggest to the guy that he should become scarce or his name WOULD be posted.

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Sad situation. Justice is needed...

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He was in uniform and in a secluded area away from any public and a couple of the fat black unaccountable rent a cops started talking sh*t to him, calling the soldier a "faggot in a bus driver hat" etc and after some extended period of time this young Infantryman said "either get over here and say that in my face or go away and f*ck yourself".

Tells me all I need to know.

We are at war.

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I know these young men are inexperienced in a lot of situations. I would advise them to respond to such heckling with the command voice they are being taught to use while on guard duty. A response such as "Sir! I refuse to disgrace my code or uniform! Please stop disgracing Yours!!!!!!

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Have these people or the company they work for done this before?

Was this a scenario set up by command as a test?

I feel a lawsuit against this company and the individuals involved should be explored

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My bet is that the harassment is at the very least sanctioned by the command.

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Hadn't thought about that - could be.

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When on post at the sacred tomb the guards may well be heckled and receive derogatory comments from members of any number of anti-establishment groups and individuals. While the rent-a-cop’s actions are inexcusable the young man’s reaction is absolutely unacceptable for his position. As unpopular as this will be I agree with his leadership’s decision while in no way condoning the situation that brought it. Harsh but real.

--
Colonel, USAF (Ret)
NRA Life Member

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necessary. Self-control is an absolute necessity for combat leaders. We all have failures and sometimes those failures have greater consequences than at other times.

--
Sincerely,

Hobie

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I almost posted this as a P.S. yesterday. While reflecting on this information it occurred to me, this is as much a failure in training as a failure in the actions of the young man. He is young and inexperienced. He was not properly trained to meet this situation. It is unfair to dismiss him without using this to train him and his fellow trainees. Punishment may be appropriate in the form of extra duty but dismissal seems to be poor judgement and a cover up for lack of training. Especially since the young man endured the heckling for some time from a person who is an a-d-u-l-t and in a position of uniformed authority. If this kind of harsh zero tolerance kind of expectations continue it will produce the opposite effect as intended. These are humans, not robots.
We are assuming this is the only incident in his training period that prompted his dismissal. These people are striving for perfection, even God is not that harsh in his desire for us to strive for perfection. He gets some amazing results.

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"The SOG of the Sentinels word is absolute and nothing less than perfection is accepted from the Guards. A life above reproach where even the appearance of impropriety is unacceptable. There are no second chances."

Rules are often not fair, they are not intended to be. Rules exist to compel conformity and produce standards. The young man in question knew the rules and didn't make the cut. When push came to shove, he could not absorb the hate and harassment so out he went.

I am certain he is disappointed, but he should be most disappointed in himself. When the pressure was on, he lacked the required self control.

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I could agree with you if he was not still in the training phase. The fact is, this happened during his training. If this was not an actual part of his training, meaning the hazing was not a covert test; then he was unprepared to deal with this situation. If so, it was unfair to hold him to a standard that his training has not prepared him for. Pilots go through escape and evade training where they too are subjected to harsh treatment when captured, but are trained for it before hand. I have seen Marines that were trained for specialize missions and they were very well trained before they were thrown to the wolves.
We will not solve the young mans problem here, but it is now evident that the reason they have such a high failure rate is the way they choose to cook the numbers. Collages use to get higher ratings by the number of drop outs measured against the number of completions. In most cases the drop outs were from being exposed to poor teachers. People who were qualified in their field, but were very poor at teaching it to others.

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That "rent a cop" didn't cost that young man a thing. Was he acting like a twit? Yep. But who was trained to be above reproach and live at a higher standard, and did he do it? Where is personal responsibility?

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He was still in training.

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And did he do it? I'm a stickler for personal responsibility, owning our mistakes and not making excuses. We ALL fail, but sometimes there are consequences. If they made an exception this time, it would require exceptions in the future for the sake of fairness and eventually the standard becomes lax and then where is the pride of making it through the training? If SEAL training were easy, who would be proud of being a seal? If Sentinal training were easy or lax, where is the respect that soldier deserves. I'm glad there are standards and I detest and despise this culture that wants so desperately to muddy the waters between black and white, wrong and right, and pretend there are no absolutes.

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Actions have consequences....

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I agree with people taking personal responsibility, but that goes for those who train as well as the trainee. This young man was still in training. If he had been properly trained, I find it hard to believe he would have been blindsided by this event. He would have known what to do and how to handle it. That is the point of them having to go through such training. When you are properly trained, when put into difficult circumstances you haven't faced before, you revert to your training. I agree the entombed soldier deserves the honor and the guards that walk that post should be the very best of the best. I also believe they should have the highest of standards. But when a trainee is put into this position two days before graduation you would think it would be a no brainer if he was properly trained. It was reported he resisted the heckling for some time before responding. Why? He did not know how to properly respond to this event. He had no trained response to react with. It may be the training needs to be longer to cover more situations and this included. But to take people that are young with not enough years of experience in life to learn things on their own and not prepare them for what they will be facing is a failure in their training. Blaming the trainee is covering up this lack in the training. It could result in very unintended consequences down the road. This event just luckily uncovered the deficiency.

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The training was a 9 months program and he had just 48 hours to go. Would the additional 48 hours made any difference? I find it hard to believe it would.

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listen to yourself...Yes 48 hour to go does make a difference. You are holding these trainees to the strictest and highest standards of discipline for a soldier. These young men are in training to meet those standards. When one is in training and they do not know how to respond when in a situation like this (during a time you would think it is all fresh in their minds)then it screams loud and clear there is a problem in their training. These are not people who do not care. They are dedicated to give their all. Sure he has a responsibility for his part, he could be set back in training, given extra duty, or any number of things; but at the same time this problem should not be ignored. It should be incorporated into the program so it does not and can not happen to people who are expected to be perfect. You believe he should be thrown out, ok throw him under the buss, But the fact that it took a lot of effort on the rent-a-cops heckling to even get him to respond in an area not well populated says something for the young man and his character. But it also says he was relying on his experience not his training. If you want perfection you have to train perfectly. They have ceremony down pat, They have personal presentation down pat. But when you expect perfection, nine months is a short training cycle to cover all that and all the situation they will be faced with. like I said before, now it is apparent why they have such a high failure rate. Do they want well trained guards or do they want a high failure to graduation rating. Poles, rating, statistics, can have the numbers cooked any way you like to say anything you like. The truth is, this is too high a standard to not have an equally high quality of training. If this happened one minute before graduation, it would matter.

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I get it that you think this guy was treated unfairly. But two days or one minute make a difference between trained and untrained. You got to be kidding me. You can think he got shafted, without such convaluted logic.

I don't know what path your life has taken, but I have been in situations where you either did it right, or payed a very heavy penalty. Life is not fair, never has been and never will be. Men don't expect fairness, they just hitch up their britches, learn from what happened and go on. Whining is not an alternate response to unfairness. Maybe I am just a crusty old Texan who does not see every injustice in the world as a hill to die on. Color me insensative or stuck in the past.

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There is one point I would still like to bring up. If this event was a test set up by the staff, what was it for? Was it to see if the trainees are understanding and absorbing the training? Was it to see if the training is effective? Or both? That is why a test is given, right? So who failed this test? The trainee or the school?
I have not heard any whining from anyone. Not the person it happened to, nor anyone else. We were asked about zero tolerance.
As to what path my life has taken, I have served in the military and in some elite units where much was expected of you. In some, I had great training, in others I would have probably died if I had not brought my experience with me. I have also served in some cold remote places and hot remote places where there was no backup to turn to other than the few men with you. In conditions like those you only have your training and experience to see you through.
You think what you like and I will do the same. I doubt we will agree and I doubt anything will change because we discussed it.

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