NCIS taking down Army/Navy stores in PA!!!

[The War Wagon]

Saw this last night on my evening newscast here in Pittsburgh tonite!  It's MY favorite Army/Navy store - about 40 minutes south of my house.  I usually pop in 2-3x/year, for 30mm/40mm cans, if nothing else http://www.wpxi.com/news/news/local/da-raid-california-army-navy-store-nets-more-750k-/nbsWw/   They have a tremendous website & fleabay store, doing business across the country.  Their website is still up - http://www.calarmy.com/ - but who knows for how long. 

I posted this on a PA website last evening, and a guy across the Commonwealth points out, that NCIS justed busted HIS favorite Army/Navy store as well!  http://www.shipnc.com/articles/2013/11/13/news/doc5282372d46076656827649.txt   

Seems like SOMETHING'S 'rotten to the Corps,' but NC is a long way from PA to fence this stuff!

Here's a better news story on it, with more details on the California, PA store raid, with an embedded TV news segment & interviews - http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2013/11/14/charges-pending-after-ncis-raids-washington-co-army-navy-surplus-store/

[SixGun]

That's pretty crazy.  One of the articles mentioned that there had been a string of breakin's and thefts so did they catch who was doing it?  Seems odd that they would only go after the purchaser of stolen property.  Unless, they had been caught and were working with the feds for immunity or a deal for a lesser charge.

[80W150]

Seems like one of the articles said they had 2 Marines in custody. And really taking the stuff up to PA from NC isn't that far fetched. Don't want to unload that stuff anywhere close to where it was stolen. Little to obvious. Granted, that is pretty ambitious to cover your tracks for stolen gear but then again, considering the amount, yeah, I'd go the extra length too if it were me. Thank God I always had the common sense and moral make up to NOT do stuff like that.

There was a couple people in one unit I was in that when they got out and turned their gear in we went around to local pawn shops and the army/navy stores because they were short gear and claimed they lost it in the field. We did manage to recover most of the gear.

[The War Wagon]

There was a couple people in one unit I was in that when they got out and turned their gear in we went around to local pawn shops and the army/navy stores because they were short gear and claimed they lost it in the field. We did manage to recover most of the gear.

Yeah... not TOO unusual to find INDIVIDUAL pieces sold to Army/Navy stores, or thru fleabay.  Trying to move $750,000 of gear at once though, is a BIT much... 

[joemouton]

When I left the Marines in 2007 they told me that if I didn't turn in all my gear that was fine I would have to pay for it, but they said that if I sold to a pawn shop or establishment like that then they would accept responsibility for having unlawful government property. I thought it was stupid and never really made sense. If I bought from them and sold it to someone else then how is it unlawful? They told me not to argue. So I turned it all in.

I would venture to guess that some Marines went to the dumpster and took all the old BDU camo stuff out and sold it after the Marines replaced their stock with digital counterparts. Some officer got wise to it an reported it, even though they were going to throw it away anyway. 

[SixGun]

I can't imagine how the base reacted to that much being stolen.  In my unit, some A-hole took a set of NVG's and we were in lock down for the better part of a week with company amnesty formations every couple of hours until someone finally turned them in.  It really sucked. 

[80W150]

Lock downs always suck. We had a M-60 come up missing once when we were out in the field. Turns out some big army major snagged it because it was "unsecured". It wasn't. The guy was at the other end of the gp large tent talking to another guy but apparently the major viewed that as "unsecured". Needless to say everything stopped until the weapon was found, in the majors quarters back on post. What a tool. Needless to say he got in a bit of trouble for taking the weapon because it was unjustified.

Here's a good one for ya. So where I worked we had a Lt Col that ran the automotive section. Back then it was just as the 880's were going out of the system. Said LTC had a 70's dodge 1 ton. Always thought it was odd the truck was in extremely great shape for it's age and he'd drive that to work every now and then. Turns out he was having one of the guys work on it on shop time using mil parts AND having him pull body parts out of the cann point. (doors, fenders, hood, tranny's......)

Well, I was just a temporary employee at the time and I got laid off for about 3 months. I got called back in January of 92 and found he wasn't at the shop anymore. I asked what happened and nobody really wanted to talk about it. Finally found out that wasn't long after I got laid off they guy that did all the work for the LTC wrote a letter to another LTC saying everything he had done. Needless to say that didn't go over well.(not to mention the two LTC's didn't like each other. The one that was in charge of automotive section was a tool) So a investigation ensued. They went to the LTC's house that owned the dodge and they found all sorts of stuff laying around that either was still in packaging with NSN's on it or was mil related. That didn't go well for him.

He ended up being removed from the shop and "retired" from the Guard. Now for the fun part. The LTC that headed up the investigation had taken over as shop superintendent. He calls me into his office, hands me a packet and says "go over to DOSM and give this to buckethead". (that's what we called the bad LTC) So I do. (good LTC was never happy about buckethead laying me off) I take it over and hand it to him. He follows me out the door and asks (like we were best buddy's or something) "how do you file for unemployment?" to which I respond "find out like I had to,,,,, sir". He just got a long face and went back inside. I turned around, lit up a smoke, smiled to myself and went back to work.

Poetic justice. The guy abused the system and his employee's and it finally bit him.

When I retired last year the only thing I couldn't find that I had to pay for was my cold weather "ski mask". We never used them. So I paid the $10 and was done with it. Even turned in a gortex digital parka that was issue but not on my record. Wanted nothing to do with it. Here, take it. (actually had a bunch of stuff that wasn't on my record from when we were deployed. They got it all back cuz I didn't want it to come back and bite me somehow.) All I kept was my pt uniform, regular uniforms, and thermal undergarments. (basically anything that touched skin they didn't want back due to regs.) Oh, and boots, so I'm set there for quite some time. Guess guard and active duty are different on that aspect.

[The War Wagon]

I wouldn't mind "mailing myself" a Military Dodge W250!  Heck, even Radar mailed home a Jeep bit by bit from Korea! 

[SixGun]

We had this one butter bar LT that liked to pull that shit with "unsecured" gear.   He really liked to push his weight around once he got his silver bar and became XO.   I was the CO's humvee driver the last year I was in and he did that shit to me.  I had a lot of friends and he made a lot of enemies.  We were gonna trash his new Mustang before he PCS'd.  The CO got wind of it and had a surprise FTX the last week before the LT left.  Never got the revenge he deserved.  Ft. Irwin, CA is a very large post and things could easily disappear in the desert.  He is lucky we weren't in combat cuz he would have gotten fragged for sure.  He was that much of a bastard.   

[80W150]

I wouldn't mind "mailing myself" a Military Dodge W250!  Heck, even Radar mailed home a Jeep bit by bit from Korea! 

Only problem is, 880's went out of service ohhhh, MANY moons ago. Mailing one to yourself might be a tad difficult.

SixGun, I know what you're saying with LT's. The one I had when we were in the sandbox, well, we didn't exactly get along. Long story short, guess I told him "it's NCO business sir, no need to concern yourself" (read, go f yourself and get out of my face before I hurt you in numerous ways) and he finally got his chance to show me who had more rank. Let's just say I made E-6 twice in my career. I would have rather just took the rank off and got to the bottom of things but apparently he didn't like the idea of that. (I even asked him once if that's what he wanted to do. I was nice, I asked, I didn't just do it. ) After my rearward progression in rank the little turd wouldn't come around me for the rest of our tour. (which was ohhh, 3 months) When we got back stateside and all the weapons were in the vault THEN he approaches me wanting to talk. I politely told him we had plenty of time to do that over the last 3 months, he made no attempt so I had nothing to say. Might have been a few not so nice or professional names uttered in that conversation, don't recall for sure, I was trying really hard not to whale on him.

You know, come to think about it, he never showed up to my retirement party. That hurts my feelers a little.

[The War Wagon]

Only problem is, 880's went out of service ohhhh, MANY moons ago. Mailing one to yourself might be a tad difficult.

Ha!  See if I mail YOU one, once my time machine is perfected! 

[80W150]

  Yeah, well, if I get my time machine working I'm getting me a halftrack, mail it to myself, then do a CTD conversion in that. How cool would that be?

[SixGun]

Well, why stop at half-track, just make mine a Tiger tank.   

[80W150]

In some aspects I agree. There was nothing badder but, maintenance nightmare. Let's go with a Panther. Little more reliable. Either way I don't think city municipalities will approve of taking them for a spin around the block.