Imagine if you will that you have the misfortune to be held hostage by terrorists who are about to execute you, the local authorities have them surrounded and the swat team snipers are all set to take them out, the order is given and "click", every swat team member's rifle fails to fire. Not a pretty scenario, yet the prospect is very real every day for our fighting men and women. The Nimby's and politically correct have driven offshore even our most basic weapons suppliers, those who manufacture ammunition. What are the military doing? They are outsourcing the very basic needs for small arms. First it was the dropping of U.S made side arms from the arsenal in favor of foreign made, gone are the .45 ACP in favor of the 9mm Berretta's. Some gobbledygook about UN compatability. During my service we used WWII and Korean era ordinance, ancient ammunition as well as the newly manufactured since the M16 was a new weapon just introduced to the battlefield. But for the M1 Garands, M1 Carbines, M14 rifles and .45 Thompsons it was the much older stuff, even then it was basically reliable. Heavy ordinace was equally old, WWII conventional bombs and artillery rounds. but importantly they were still manufactured in the US where the quality was controlled and manufacturers were held accountable. Today we rely on foreign suppliers for Ammo. This not only endangers our troops but provides a ready cash supply for our enemies to use against us. Fox News: WASHINGTON; The U.S. Army on Thursday suspended any further dealings with a munitions contractor that may have fraudulently sold million of dollars worth of Chinese-made ammunition to the U.S. Army to be used by Afghan forces fighting Al Qaeda and Taliban extremists. AEY Inc., a Miami-based company, is facing allegations that it violated a U.S. Army contract agreement when it provided the old Chinese cartridges rather than the Hungarian-made ammunition it promised. Contracts for the ammunition signed between the U.S. military and AEY in January 2007 amount to more than $200 million. FOX News obtained a letter from the Army Legal Service Division to Efraim Diveroli, president of AEY Inc., telling him that his company is temporarily suspended from "future contracting with any agency in the executive branch of the United States government." "The basis for the suspension is based on an allegation that on November 25, 2007, you provided the Army Sustainment Command, Rock Island, Illinois, with a Certificate of Conformance that you knew to be false or misleading. "Specifically, this Certificate of Conformance states that all ammunition provided pursuant to Task Order 2 is in conformance with contract specifications and indicates that it was manufactured in Hungary between 1965 and 1975, when in fact the majority of the ammunition was manufactured in the People's Republic of China between 1962 and 1974," the letter reads. The letter also states that the company's future is in jeopardy and hinges on the results of an investigation by the Army's Criminal Investigation Division. Pentagon Spokesman Bryan Whitman said he has spoken with military leaders at the Combined Forces Command in Afghanistan and so far "there is no indication that this ammunition hasn't performed to the standard or has posed a safety risk." But Whitman pointed to concerns about substandard packaging in which the ammunition arrived. As it turns out, that packaging may have been one of the first clues that this ammunition came from China. According to an Army Legal Services memo, AEY began contracting for the Defense and State departments in 2004, and to date has been awarded more than 150 contracts. That the ammunition was slated for use by the Afghan troops is of significance, they are our supposed allies and are charged with providing their part in securing the safety of not only their own but any US and Coalition forces serving with them, furthermore when supplies run low the ammunition is shared amongst all and is liable to be used by Americans as well. Some one in the bureaucracy has dropped the ball and only now has been caught. Personally I have fired more than my share of 105MM Howitzer rounds most of it outdated Korean War era munitions. About misfires, it gets a bit unnerving to have to drop the breach, rotate that live round 90º and try to fire it again, only to have to remove it and store it for later disposal, a dud? Maybe so, it might be a hangfire and it might explode while handling it endangering not only yourself but the entire gun crew, furthermore any misfires can put you in harms way by giving the enemy time to direct fire on your position or overrun it. Our troops deserve the very best and some heads need to roll over this blunder. Speaking of blunders, here is another serious screw up. Fox News WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert Gates has ordered a full inventory of all nuclear weapons and related materials and an assessment of inventory control procedures in the wake of the mistaken delivery of ballistic missile fuses to Taiwan. The Pentagon said Thursday that Gates issued the order in a letter to the Air Force, Navy and Defense Logistics Agency. He told the agencies he wanted a report in no more than 60 days, the Defense Department said. Earlier this week, Gates asked Navy Adm. Kirkland H. Donald to take charge of a full investigation of the delivery mishap, in which four cone-shaped fuses for an intercontinental ballistic missile were shipped to the Taiwanese instead of the helicopter batteries they had ordered. The fuses were delivered in fall 2006 but the military did not fully realize the gravity of the blunder until last week, triggering sharp protests from China and forcing President Bush to acknowledge the error in a phone call Wednesday with Chinese President Hu Jintao. Hey, that's well over a year to discover a supply screwup, way to go DOD. Will we get some more foreign national granny watcher/shakedown artists at the domestic airlines gates while we let these incompetents get a free ride?