Had a recruit who couldn’t/wouldn’t keep his rifle rust free even after several admonishments from the DIs. He was called out during morning formation and while standing at at ease told to strip his M1 down to the 3 main groups. Then take it down to the bare essentials. Instructed to dig a hole 5ft long x 2ft wide x 3 ft deep. He placed 3 or 4 pieces on the bottom covered with sand and water did ths till there was no more parts or sand. Took a fire bucket filled it with water and poured over the area. I mean he put so much water on the area the water was flowing off. The DI told him at 2000 he was going to dig up his rifle find EVERY piece, have it cleaned for morning inspection if one speck of rust is observed he was going to be courts martialed I mean they were up in his face(they were mad!). During the day after everything dried the DIs raked up the whole area so he wouldn’t be able to tell exactly where it was buried.He was up most of the night. His rifle passed inspection and HE NEVER had a dirty/rust rifle again in boot camp
I do remember our whole platoon (3056) burying our rifles in the sand behind the barracks. P.l. 67. Harry
I can relate to this story. One Saturday night during drill, My SDI whispered in my ear “See me when we get back to the area. I was hoping he had forgotten about it, no such luck. For the next 2hrs I “watched TV (elbows and toes), about faces inside a wall locker while they burned news paper below. Then endless squat thrusts, all because of a spec of rust on the castle nut on my M14. From that time on I never had rust on any of my firearms to this day.