Hundreds, possibly thousands of dangerous munitions such as armour-piercing grenades, landmines, and rockets, as well as hundreds of pounds of plastic explosives, have been lost or stolen from the US military during the past decade, AP reports citing their own investigation into the matter.
According to the media outlet, records have been falsified by troops in attempts to conceal thefts, and in some cases, missing explosives weren’t reported at all.
Such occurrences can have deadly consequences, as an artillery shell exploding at a recycling yard in Mississippi claimed the life of a worker. Two days later, another intact artillery shell was found at the same recycling yard, with the investigating authorities reportedly suspecting that the ordnance originated from nearby Army National Guard Base Camp Shelby.
In another instance, a Marine Corps demolition specialist who became “worried about America, and about the civil war he feared would follow the presidential election,” reportedly stole some 6 kilograms of C4 plastic explosives from Camp Lejeune’s training ranges.
Explosives that originated from military bases or shipments, with some of them being taken by “military insiders,” have reportedly been discovered “in homes and storage units, inside military barracks and alongside roads, even at a US-Mexico border checkpoint.”
A chart provided to the media outlet by the US Army contained nearly 1,900 entries for missing explosives, about half of which were supposedly recovered, with the majority of the missing material being described as C4/TNT.
Army spokesman Lt. Col. Brandon Kelley, however, noted that researchers “couldn't always determine amounts," so it makes determining the exact amounts of explosives represented in said entries somewhat problematic.
A chart provided by the Air Force reportedly listed about 23 kilograms of C4, more than 244 meters of detonating cord, and several dozen 40mm armour-piercing grenades as lost without being recovered.
And while the Navy reportedly said that only 20 hand grenades have been stolen, the media outlet managed to procure “military investigative records” that showed an additional 24 grenades reported as missing from a ship’s armoury back in 2012, to which Navy spokesman Lt. Lewis Aldridge replied that the case was “beyond the 2-year local records retention requirement.”
The Marine Corps reportedly “released data that was too unclear to calculate a precise tally” in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, though the media outlet said their “rough analysis” suggests that “thousands of armour-piercing grenades and hundreds of pounds of plastic explosives were reported lost or stolen.”
AP also states that their AWOL Weapons investigation shows “poor accountability and insider thefts” resulting in the loss of over 2,000 military firearms, some of which “were used in civilian crimes, found on felons or sold to a street gang.”