Wile E. Coyote

Can't answer for Richard, but before the DRMOs got all uptight you could walk over to the scrap side from the GL side and talk to the guys with the scrap contract and make a deal or two. The way it generally worked was that whomever had the scrap contract had to keep the stuff piled in their area of the base moving (i.e. you couldn't let it accumulate), but other than that the definition of 'scrapped' seemed to vary, as did the procedure for its disposal. Once I saw literally stacks of brand new mod tent center sections, tan FMTV tops still in the boxes, brand-new tow bar adapters, Bose combat headsets and all sorts of other crap in the scrapyard - where GL had nothing but triwalls of garbage on their shelves for four sales in a row (typically things like WIDGET, BRASS, QTY 1400, PN 9M31403, UOC NSN 2112-01-246-2183 FLEET OILER USS BILGEWATER..))

Anyhow, once there was this S280 shelter - complete piece of shyte as a shelter - but one that had a turret ring and legs of an M1025 Humvee bolted into the roof as a target-trainer. It was in the scrap. We made a side deal for it as 'good for parts', and the scrap guys sold it to us for its weight in rusty sheet metal and angle iron. Voila! One more demilled Humvee hardtop with its ring and hatch back. Saw a few boxfulls of Motorola Secure Saber radios, batteries, remote mikes and chargers too. Go figure.

For awhile there they'd make inexplicable choices as to what vehicles went to GL and what went to scrap. Two identical M1009 Blazers came up once from the same unit: one went through GL and got the usual $2250 or so bid -- the other went straight to scrap and was sold to someone for $800 without a title. A bunch of M52A2s came up through GL --- yet 8 or so M915 low-miler tractor units with nice Cummins 400s and Cat or Allison automatics went straight to the scrapyard. It was just...mindblowing...but knowing the outrageously lazy nature of the folks who work at some of the DRMS locations we deal with...hardly surprising.

For a good example of the kind of stuff going out for scrap at a DRMS near you -- hit up Ebay and check out vendor Austin Aviation ("beltfed34") - and that's only the smallest part of it. Evidently they've brained up with respect to the vehicle nonsense (at least this side of the Mississippi), but other stuff still goes to the scrapyard. I mean...operational jet engines and stuff? C'mon. Surely some third world dictator would give Uncle a pile'o'money for that stuff...or some of the FMS nations we support.