A War Story

One time when we were in the field a friend was spotted putting a super cleaning on his .45 after we had shut down from some gruelling operations and were 2-3 days away from going home. He was asked why he bothered since it was only going to get eaten up with crud and dust and he would be cleaning it again when we got in anyway. Very smugly, he intimated his plan was to clean it to spec. leave it dry, put it a Zip Loc bag and then once we got back to the rear he would hit the high spots on it, rub it down with a little oil and then go out for a steak while the rest of us chumps slaved away for hours on our weapons.

What he didn't count on was a little thing called capillary action. When we got in, he pulled that pistol from his backpack and then from it's nominally protective cocoon of Zip Loc-ness. It was absolutely orange with rust- I mean it looked like a battlefield pick-up from Guadalcanal. It was mesmerizing, none of had ever seen anything like it. The outer metal surfaces were already visibly pitted and the action was frozen. It took a hammer and screwdriver to break it down- after it soaked for hours in penetrating oil.
He spent most of two days cleaning that weapon. The armorer still had to send it out to get refurbished.

We did not laugh about his misfortune over our steaks until our faces hurt that night.