Thursday, September 01, 2022

Weapons Maintenance

An ex-Marine writes here  about the difficulties in properly cleaning/maintaining weapons.  I wasn't a Marine, but the piece seems valid to me. 

It struck a chord because I remember the captured soldier in the early days of the Iraq war.  For a while she was made an icon of the fighting woman.  Eventually it turned out that her weapon jammed so she never fought.  I had sympathy for her.  I don't think I ever cleaned my weapon in Vietnam.  As a matter of fact, there was a screwup in getting my departure orders to me, so it was a mad dash to get to Camp LBJ and go through out-processing, one step of which was turning in my weapon. When I tried to, the guy (spec-4 maybe?) refused to take it until I cleaned it.  I tried to explain the situation, my flight was due out shortly, but he was adamant.  Finally I threw some money at him >$50<$100 and he agreed to take it.

I made my flight. 

(It seems possible that the Russian soldiers fighting in the Ukraine have been as lax in their maintenance as I was. )



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