AP: US military explosives vanish, emerge in civilian world

The Marine Corps demolition specialist was worried — about America, and about the civil war he feared would follow the presidential election. Hundreds — and possibly thousands — of armor-piercing grenades, hundreds of pounds of plastic explosives, as well as land mines and rockets have been stolen from or lost by the U.S. armed forces over the past decade, according to an ongoing Associated Press investigation into the military’s failure to secure all its weapons of war. AP’s rough analysis showed that thousands of armor-piercing grenades and hundreds of pounds of plastic explosives were reported lost or stolen. When the AP produced military investigative records showing an additional 24 grenades had been reported missing from a ship’s armory in 2012, Navy spokesman Lt. Lewis Aldridge said the case was “beyond the 2-year local records retention requirement.” Aldridge added: “We are committed to transparency and following proper procedures and take accountability of explosives seriously.” Not all missing explosives need to be reported all the way up the military’s bureaucracy. “So it’s like well, you know, I’ve also got that just in case if the world does start coming to an end or anything crazy like that, I could protect me and my family.” After Trump won, he carefully buried the explosives just beyond the tree line in the backyard of his home off Camp Lejeune.