On Tue, 05 Jan 2010 08:05:50 +0700, the infamous
scrawled the following:

IN 1964 and 1965 I was stationed at Nha Trang air base. 5th special
Forces camp abutted on the back of the Nha Trang airbase and I used to
eat in the S.F. mess.

When the first hullabaloo happened with the M-16 and people started
writing home to Mama about their gun jamming I mentioned this across
the supper table to a bunch of army people. I was told that 5th had
conducted the "jungle tests" of the M-16 and "we never had a
malfunction".

The statement was followed by the comment "Of course we clean our
weapons".

IIRC, they sent the first crates of M-16s over without cleaning kits
or with the wrong kits. But IIRC, the tighter tolerances were partly
to blame, too, with the weapons being dragged around the wet, muddy
jungle. They clogged at the slightest dust.


I can't comment from personal experience (the A.F. is the only service
that sends its officers out to do or die and stays safely at the base
:-) but I've always wondered about the stories of people who threw
their M-16 away to grab up a muddy old AK. Where did they get the
ammo? Did the U.S. Army maintain stocks of AK ammo because they just
knew that their people wanted it?

From what I've read, weapons and ammo were removed from dead VCs,
picked up during raids, etc. Large amounts were destroyed after the
VC started doing what we did: put high explosives in plain ammo to
booby trap the enemy.

LRPs didn't do _nearly_ as much shooting as their fellow soldiers who
were trying to take or defend areas, either.

--
Society is produced by our wants and government by our wickedness.
--Thomas Paine