When I was in Afghanistan, we had the magazines in the gun, but no round chambered until leaving the FOB. Some of the smaller outposts had a round chambered at all times, but I was an old fart who was on the larger bases.
All I would have needed to do to fire was rack the slide of my 9mm...
When flying somewhere, we brought along our M-4s and all our ammo. That was in case the plane went down...
But that was also under GWB in 2006. I’m sure the current guidance is much less ‘rude’.
In some of the very small COPs (think “Restrepo”) I could see amber status, maybe even red. On a FOB like Ramrod or Kandahar? Can you possibly imagine everyone going around in red status? Good Lord...the mind boggles.