From: chance wolf (chance_wolf@shaw.ca)
Date: Sun Nov 21 2004 - 11:44:06 PST
----- Original Message -----
From: "Julian Burke" <julian@knology.net>
To: "Military Vehicles Mailing List" <mil-veh@mil-veh.org>
Sent: Sunday, November 21, 2004 9:28 AM
Subject: Re: [MV] Humvees Auctioned to Civilians
> Sometimes I like to be proven wrong and this is no exception. (I hate
being
> right all of the time!) I was thinking the same thing when I saw this
item
> for sale. This is also a first time for this type of item to have come
out
> of GL or whatever they call themselves today. I have seen much worse
units
> available with barely a frame and some civilian at the DRMO or GL is
afraid
> which is all of the time.
Through the grapevine, I understand the GL ad featuring that HMMWV was
circulated among the GL outfits at a few other major bases which are still
being told that nothing resembling a HMMWV body or frame part can be sold.
It was also wryly noted that the HMMWV auction didn't even have an EUC
requirement. Apparently the local GL offices at the various bases are
subject to the whim of the DRMS office at that particular base in and above
any national DRMS requirements, which leads to some interesting variation.
One guy categorized it as "frustrating" and mentioned they "should be able
to sell" scads of perfectly good stuff they currently (local policy) have to
send off to the shredder.
Another thing I noticed on the GL site Friday was a Flash presentation
featuring a bunch of M35s being auctioned off back East (closed Friday, I
think.) In this little Flash movie, they drive various surplus deuces into
the middle of the holding yard, show details of the outside and inside, and
reel off the spects to potential bidders. The most interesting part was the
narrator reading off a list of possible uses for ex-military trucks, and
while some were sort of generic swords-into-ploughshares type things, he
actually, physically mentions "military vehicle collectors and restorers"
(paraphrased.) Might still be up on the GL site if anyone cares to look,
and I think I have it archived on my office computer for anyone who can't
find it on the GL site.
People complain about GL quite a bit, but at least GL corporate realizes
there *is* a military vehicle collectors hobby out there, where it seems
DRMS is happy sitting in various levels of comfortable chairs thinking happy
thoughts about their retirement pensions while cluelessly slaughtering
fleets of perfectly good vehicles in some sort of permanent state of
institutional paranoia. At least *someone* got a HMMWV to restore out of
the deal, so cheers to whichever GL and DRMS employees gave their heads a
shake when it came to assessing the demil category in a realistic, sensible
fashion.
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