I was in a HMG platoon in a Weapons company. I kid you not, I was in about 3 years before I ever saw an M2 browning with blueing on it. I thought they came light gray and shiny. But the M2 browning was always the biggest hit at the dog and pony shows. Every WWII, Korean, or Vietnam vet knew the M2 well no matter what their MOS. I heard more war stories about the M2 browning then I can even remember.
BTW, the manual says you can clean the M2 browning with hot soapy water. We and STA platoon shared an open squad bay right behind the company office because we were the smallest platoons in the company,excluding H&S. One time the first sergeant (MSGT) walked by the the showers and almost shit himself when he saw us cleaning our machine guns in the shower. We used to take toilet brushes and flatten them and use them to clean the guns while we were in the showers. But everyone of us had the page number memorized giving us permission to use hot soapy water. He walked away.
We did not have dry cleaning solvent at our armory but they had it in fifty five gallon drums at San Onofre where ITS was at. If we were in the area we used to fill up empty .50 cal ammo cans full of dry cleaning solvent so we could use it at our barracks. We never brought in on the armory grounds though.
Does the Crotch have accompanied tours now?
They sure did not in the “Old Corps.”
In my company on Okie we had one guy who had a motorcycle
and one Sgt. who was married to a local woman and had a car.
Some of the officers and staff NCOs had cars.
Of course the Air Force had accompanied tours and would ship households and cars.
I had to have my parents mail some of my uniforms and civvies to me and then mail back to them when I left because I had more than the 65 pound
maximum weight limit.