[centurion316]

I agree, something should be done. The thing that comes to mind is cleaning your weapon. Based on many years of experience in such things, I suspect that what happened here is that these soldiers put their weapons in their trucks when they left Kuwait and did not touch them again until they came under fire.

Two reasons for this come to mind:

1. They were support troops - support troops never expect to have to fight for their lives and are typically less attentive to such details

2. Their sergeants failed to check

[FreedomPoster]

Didn't mean to leave you folks out of that thread summary.

[TominPA]

"2. Their sergeants failed to check"

The most important point made in this discussion. It's widely know the M-16 requires more maintaince in a sandy or dusty enviornment. No one made them check or clean them, plain and simple.