Meanwhile at North Carolina’s Camp Lejune, explosives have gone missing (Associated Press):
The Marine Corps demolition specialist was worried — about America, and about the civil war he feared would follow the presidential election.
And so, block by block, he stole 13 pounds (6 kilograms) of C4 plastic explosives from the training ranges of Camp Lejeune.
“The riots, talk about seizing guns, I saw this country moving towards a scary unknown future,” the sergeant would later write, in a seven-page statement to military investigators. “I had one thing on my mind and one thing only, I am protecting my family and my constitutional rights.”
His crime might have gone undetected, but authorities caught a lucky break in 2018 as they investigated yet another theft from Lejeune, the massive base on coastal North Carolina. In that other case, explosives ended up in the hands of some high school kids.
These are not isolated cases. Hundreds — and possibly thousands — of armor-piercing grenades, hundreds of pounds of plastic explosives, as well as land mines and rockets have been stolen from or lost by the U.S. armed forces over the past decade, according to an ongoing Associated Press investigation into the military’s failure to secure all its weapons of war. Still more explosives were reported missing and later recovered.
In some cases, troops falsified records and covered up the misappropriated weapons or failed to secure them in the first place.
The AP’s AWOL Weapons investigation has shown that poor accountability and insider thefts have led to the loss of more than 2,000 military firearms since 2010. Some guns were used in civilian crimes, found on felons or sold to a street gang.
In response, Congress is set to require that the military give lawmakers detailed loss and theft reports every year.
One thing those reforms won’t do: Make it harder to steal explosives such as C4.
No serial numbers on the Play-Doh-like material. Tracking is by the honor system some like the demolition specialist find easy to dishonor.
The Air Force, Navy and Marines all reported lost munitions, with the U.S. Army explaining that losses constitute “a small fraction of a percent.” When less than less than 10 pounds of C4 goes missing, it might not be reported.
With right-wing extremists itching for civil war, knowing that “a small fraction of a percent” of explosives are going missing in the hands of men such as Sgt. Travis Glosser is not exactly comforting:
During the summer of 2016, Glosser feared Hillary Clinton would beat Donald Trump in the presidential election, and society might disintegrate. So he began accumulating leftovers until he had what he described as “a respectable amount” of C4 — 10 blocks, weighing nearly 13 pounds (6 kilograms).
“I mean, you know how crazy the world is nowadays,” Glosser told an NCIS agent in June 2018, when he surrendered. “So it’s like well, you know, I’ve also got that just in case if the world does start coming to an end or anything crazy like that, I could protect me and my family.”
After Trump won, he carefully buried the explosives just beyond the tree line in the backyard of his home off Camp Lejeune. They remained there until, more than a year later, word began circulating that Krasovec was in trouble and there would be an inventory review.
There was a gun nut who was legend around offices I worked in for his mishandling of firearms. His nickname was right out of “Dukes of Hazzard.” He’d shot himself in the leg practicing his quick-draw. The garage where he stored his reloading supplies caught fire. The fire department stood back and watched it burn as canister after canister of gunpowder exploded. Per one tale, he had an M2 Browning .50 caliber machine from a crate that had “fallen off a train.”
Per a rumor I heard decades ago, they stored tactical nukes at Ft. Bragg not far from Camp Lejune. Sleep tight.
