I was assigned to the armoury at Suwon Air Base, ROK, after a routine inventory revealed multiple M-16 automatic sears missing. Turns out the guy I replaced sent some home to his buddy to sell to convert ,AR-15’s to full automatic. His loss, my gain. No more humping F-102’s. But even then ammo security was pretty lax. We would take excess/outdated ammo to the range and shoot it up instead of doing the paper work to send it to EOD.
Shooting up excess ammo is how I got the star on my Small Arms Expert ribbon - the USAF didn’t let officers shoot M-16s in those days and a Navy Reserve Master Chief who was the chief of police where I’m the judge called me one day and said, “Wanna get M-16 qual’d? I got 80 peoples’ worth of rounds and only 40 people to blow ‘em off.” Surprisingly, the AF accepted my score and gave me the device.
Colonel, USAFR (ret)