by Derek Farwell
Columnist

One of the more interesting things I experienced during the military was some of the uncommon weapons that we used, discovered, and had access to. Whether they were our personal weapons that we used or carried with us, or weapons that we discovered in large weapon stashes that belonged to the bad guys, until we found them and took them, we became very experienced in operating a great many kinds of weapons. During our deployment we found many of these weapons stashes, and we found some pretty ridiculous but fully functioning weapons systems, and we always made sure to try them out before turning them over. In some cases we held onto them if they could be of use to us.

One of the weapons that is pretty common amongst the US military is called the MK-19 grenade launcher. It seems to me like a weapon that is well suited for a video game. It is a fully automatic grenade launcher. If the trigger is pulled and held it is capable of shooting about 300 grenades a minute. A very intimidating weapon, and one that is very fun to use. The problem with it is that because it is such a complex weapon with so many moving parts, it was extremely unreliable and very susceptible to getting jammed. So a more realistic scenario includes firing about 15 grenades, and then nervously trying to figure out what is causing the hot weapon to jam while a big belt of grenades hangs off of the side of it.

Some of the more unique weapons that ever came across were not even ours. One of the things the bad guys did was a large stash of weapons consolidated and hidden in somebodies house or on their property. We found weapons stashes under a false floor in a chicken coup, behind a brick wall that was accessible by a small hole hidden behind a fake panel that looked like part of the wall, buried in yards, in vehicles, and other places most people couldn’t even imagine. Most of the stashes also contained bombs, grenades, and other explosives that made you a little bit wary about being in the same building until you could confirm that they weren’t boobie trapped, which was always a possibility.

After finding one of these hidden rooms in a particular house we found about 75 guns ranging from old bolt action rifles, automatic machine guns, to high powered sniper rifles. We also found a small gun that was clearly a homemade machine gun with a large homemade silencer on it. It shot 9mm rounds, which was convenient because I carried a 9mm pistol so I had an abundance of 9mm rounds all the time. It was a fully automatic submachine gun and the homemade silencer worked so well that it sounded like a BB gun when it was fired. We held onto this weapon and used it as a deterrent to packs of wild dogs that often followed us around and barked at us all the time.

One of the more creative weapons we ever found was a recoilless rifle that was made of PVC pipe and a permeable rubber seal on one end. A recoilless rifle is a shoulder fired rocket launcher that can fire explosives large enough to penetrate armored vehicles. It looked like a cheaply made potato gun until we found the artillery shells that were fired out of it.

We often wondered how people of such limited means were able to mount such a fierce defense, but finding things like this were proof to us just how determined of an enemy we were fighting. They certainly displayed more ingenuity and creativity than I possess, though it was a rather interesting experience to find and use some of these unique weapons.

drfarwell@hotmail.com