Gun Control Reform Activism

I was in Vietnam 67-68 then 69-70.

In 67-68 we had the early versions of the M-16. They required regular cleaning for a number of reasons -- humidity; powder fouling of the action; general crap getting into the action from carrying the rifle through brush, dunking it in water, etc; and general shit getting into the action.

When I went back in 69-70 Colt had fixed many of the problems, but, most of us were still carrying the old weapons. I turned in my old one for a new on about 3 months into my second tour, they had solved a lot of the problems of fouling from being fired all the time, but still required a lot of cleaning, mainly because of the small tolerances to which the weapon was manufactured. The AK-47, which was the standard weapon for the NVA and VC, was made of stamped steel with the forged and machined parts made to lesser tolerances -- the AK was much more rugged and forgiving than the M-16.

I retired long before the current M-4/M4A1 came into general use but from what I hear, it's a reliable weapon.

We had to clean that damn M-16 every time we stopped.