JBLM loses “hundreds” of optics sets
It seems like a Company in the 4th Stryker Brigade on Fort Lewis have had their optics go missing. How thefts of this magnitude happen are beyond my understanding. The whole Company is on lockdown until they locate the gear while the PR Major at I Corps sent out this amusing statement to the public:
“You have to have other stuff to make it dangerous, and you have to know how to use it,” Ophardt said Sunday. “It’s not something the average Joe can attach to their gun and become instant Rambo.”
I’d like to know where they’ve been hiding the just-add-attachments Instant Rambo Gear.
They’re also offering a $10,000 reward so if you see that shifty Supply SSGT who lives next door in housing unloading crates full of optics at 3 a.m. I’d say give the MPs a ring.
Category: Crime, Military issues
I’m going up to Seattle at the end of the month to visit my brother-in-law. I’ll have to keep my eyes open for any shady optics sales.
well that explains why this woman was so butt hurt at U.S. Army WTF moments
http://www.facebook.com/usawtfm/posts/10150520994538606
Some of the comments are freaking hilarious.
Yeah, I’ve been scratchin’ my head over the amount missing also. If actually missing (stolen), it’s likely an inside (somebody in the chain of command) job.
They probably misplaced a conex.
Is this an example of the gangbangers in the military stealing weapons?
now are we talking about ACOGs or are we talking about ANPVS-14’s or PEQ-2’s or red dots or what? And it seems odd that someone would steal these particular type of optics because they can really only mount on one type of rail system, which is only common in Western firearms, so it would be of no use to someone trying to give it to a foreign buyer, and locally let’s face it they don’t worry that much about accuracy.
When we got our company RFI gear years ago, the supply SGT didn’t properly account for it. I was on CQ when it came in via UPS, kept it under guard all night until being relieved, and supply didn’t even worry about counting how many Gerbers we got or recording the serial numbers of the SureFires. Needless to say, more than a few came up missing, but it wasn’t until he lost a bunch of Interceptor Body Armor that the supply SGT was UCMJ’ed out. Of course ,those were multitools, tactical lights, and other relatively minor items–not NODs and ACOGS (or similar items).
Optics and night vision goggles have been maintained in the Arms Room in the units I’ve been in. I ran one arms room for a few months at Campbell and was in charge of another one in DC (went into it due to a manning issue and managed to keep access as “NCOIC” even after going back to a platoon) and never lost so much as a bayonet. Also, most of the time the chain of command has limited access; often the XO is the only person with the combination besides the armorer(s). So, unless they were new items that had not yet been transferred to the Arms Room and were for some reason left in a lightly secured area, I’d have to say that the number of people who had access to “hundreds” of them would be small.
Furthermore any money made from the sale of such itmes could never be spent. It would be a dead giveaway. Well at least untill you moved to somewhere like Cuba or Iran or at the moment anyways you could not be extradited. And both of those would be dangerous choices as the local PTB might think that you are a plant trying to bring bad intentions in to th local environment.
I wonder if an upgrade occurred and it is simply a paperwork shuffle?
Of course, considering the amount of AR-type weapons we’ve allowed to “walk” to the cartels in Mexico, them wanting Night Vision and other sorts of “add-ons” would be a no-brainer.
The Border Patrol has losing a LOT of it’s National Guard support, and those guys have pout a dent in the daylight illegals-smuggling trade. If the cartels wanted to move products and people by night, having those items would be right handy, I figure.
Unfortunately this type of theft (although at much lower magnitude) happens a lot more than most people think. I’ve seen investigations at Fort Hood, Leonard Wood, and Lewis where optics, NOD’s, and a few times even whole weapons have come up missing. At Hood we had a problem with people selling magazines at local gun shows, this was back when a 30 round mag was much more expensive. At Lewis a whole M240 came up missing. At Hood a whole M16 came up missing after a NTC deployment and stayed missing until a E-6 SSG confessed several weeks later to its theft. Ask anyone who has served as an MP, these things happen much more than anyone wants to admit.
Why do people always make us supply guys out as thieves…
Wait…
Don’t answer that.
[…] clockwork January 10th, 2012 Remember all those optics that went missing from JBLM a couple days ago? Well it turns out it’s about $600k worth of stuff that was […]