One sailor and 2 DOD police officers when I came thru, in each lane < Gate 1 > They set a new standard for themselves. No more " we don't have enough people" argument.
Disclaimer: I have no connection with Pax security or command; these are my opinions based on what I see happening and what I read in news articles about these issues. YMMV.
Consider that the base only has a certain number of security forces available. During an exercise period like Solid Curtain, they will occasionally have to pull some of the security forces normally handling gate duties during morning rush hour to cover other simulated emergencies. That's part of the exercise - discovering how the security force setup can handle an emergency while still covering more mundane duties like gate traffic. Of course they can't send everyone to either location. So clearly such an exercise as SC/CS will affect gate traffic; they'll have minimal staff at the gates for some part of the exercise.
(In fact, I'd guess that part of the drill is hitting them two places at once - drawing off staff for a simulated emergency, then trying to sneak someone thru the gate. And you can be confident someone will analyze their response, and make appropriate corrections.)
Does it suck for people coming on base in the morning? Sure.
Does it help them identify weaknesses in the security posture? Absolutely.
For my part, I'm fine with suffering through a couple days of backed up traffic to know that the base security is doing a good job and identifying weak points in security, so they can fix it. No, it's really NOT "security theater". There are highly paid, very smart people doing their darndest to keep us all safe, given the externally-imposed constraints of budget and billets. For this exercise, very smart people are designing challenging security scenarios that fully tax their resources on multiple fronts. I'm fine with the results, even when I'm occasionally annoyed.
At least I made an attempt at humor to lighten up the mood.
