Really in a way they are still "disposable" as in, use them until they wear out and then replace them. They are classified as an expendable item (less than 100$ in value and not consumed in use) as opposed to a durable or consumable. They also (from what I've seen) aren't tracked that closely. Usually the only grief a CDR may have from a property standpoint is that 1 magazine is listed as BII for the M16 FOW and thus is responsible for 1 mag per M4 on his property book. An infantry company will always have enough to cover this and excess magazines are not added to the property books (again from what I've seen other units may, depends on the units PBO). So how accountability was supposed to work was when a soldier was issued mags, usually the armorer issued it to him on a 2062 hand receipt, and when it came time to clear the unit he would turn in however many mags he had signed for on the 2062. In reality that hand receipt would usually get lost in the shuffle of deployments, personnel change over etc and really didn't matter. Not to mention that no one wants to go through the hassle of doing a statement of charges on a few m4 mags if it wasnt lost. Kind of a long winded response, I know, but trying to clear up some misconceptions about how property works in the army and to highlight that they really are disposable in a way.
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What anti gun people need to understand about gun control: It's like peeing in your pants on a cold night in Ranger School. It feels pretty good at first, but it is certainly not a solution to anything.
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