Here is the modern war trophy form if you look at section 8 item number 3 should be of interest that means that you can not keep a functioning firearm period:
http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/i...s/dd0603-1.pdf

So anyone at least in modern times that has a functioning firearm they either are lying or they violated the law and they are very strict about checking you out when you leave a war zone I can confirm this from personal experience.

Pre 1969 the regulations where much more lax so a pre 1969 vet might have been able to keep an automatic weapon but I doubt it not a functioning one anyway and post 1969 he would not have been able to keep any functioning fire arm.

As I see it, a knife or a bayonet would also fall into the category of a lethal weapon.
So under modern regulations all the Hitler Youth and SS daggers which were a popular souvenir back then would be considered illegal. :hmmm:

No, I no longer know the vet. Remember, that was about 40 years ago. I would have no knowledge of what he did with the weapons or where they might be, if they are still around at all.

As far as forms and legality, the capabilities of US servicemen to get around the "niceties" of red tape and regs is near legendary. It is one of the reasons you quite frequently hear about some weapon or another being found in some one's old possessions. There was an old eoisode of the TV series "M*A*S*H" where Radar O'Reilly was mailing home a complete Jeep one piece at a time. I remember at the time it was originally aired, the producers and writers stated the story was based on a actual incident. The ingenuity of a determined soldier is not to be underestimated...

<O>

That was in the old days today things are much much stricter and they will truly throw the book at you for violations of this kind.By attempting to smuggle weapons in the modern US military you put the rest of your life at risk not from death but from the effect on your record.Few people would try it today at least not anything of real value or anything that is illegal.Small time stuff you can try and at worst they make you pay for it.

In the old day what you say is true because generally speaking people just looked the other way or gave a slap on the wrist it was just a different world then.Today that would not happen.

The people that smuggle guns or anything illegal in the modern US military either have very poor judgment or they do not care and are of the criminal element anyway and intend to sell the weapons for profit.

Your basing things on TV ans someone that did something in 1970 I am basing what I know on my own experience and those of friends and my relatives in this day and age it is much harder to pull these kinds of things and soldiers have been caught trying to do it.

Hollyweird has its stylized view of what people in the military do and it is usually not accurate.