One regret I still have is not following my gut. There was a day, I think it was in 2001 or 2002, when an old lady came to the fire station. She pulled up on to the driveway while another firefighter and I were doing some training with our brush truck. (We were standing on the back of it, playing with the water.)
She told me her husband, a Vietnam war veteran, had passed away. She told me she didn’t know what to do with some of his old things and decided to bring them to us. In the trunk of her car was an ammo can. Inside of that can was half a dozen hand grenades. I still regret letting the cops know about it. The bomb squad came out and took possession of them.
I also know a guy who was a Combat Engineer. He had a few blocks of C4 and some detonators located in ammo cans in his garage. I forget the guys name, but I am sure he turned them in. yeah.
I am thinking there is a lot more military ammo and ordinance out there than anyone knows about. Remember the M60 that turned up in a Chicago buyback? How about the time that National Guard unit lost an M240? (It was never found) In fact, the US military loses about 200 weapons a year, on average, that they know about. Many times, a weapon goes missing and it’s covered up by people who don’t want to get in hot water.
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