I'm betting a lot of civilian CCW carriers in shall issue states are carrying loaded weapons with little or no practice. In some states, no classes and no qualification is needed to get a CCW permit.
And in several states, you don't need a permit to carry a loaded weapon concealed.
Yet we don't see massive numbers of ADs killing people.
All the military vets I know at least had a chance to handle and fire a gun in basic training if nothing further.
All the military vets I've talked too have a least been show how to handle a gun in basic training.
I think expecting troops to do guard duty with unloaded weapons and no ammo is just plain stupid.
A guy I know has a buddy that has shot in the back and paralyzed and nearly killed in Panama leading up to the Noriega incident because he had an empty weapon and was attacked while on guard duty.
IMO people in the military should always be armed (with ammo) when potentially in harms way. And should be trained to handle weapons in that situation.