Airmen Lose Machine Gun After Losing Box Of Grenades

At first, I thought this was a duffelblog article. Even now, I’m not 100% convinced it’s not at least lifted from the Onion or something.
Seriously though, how in the name of Zeus’s butthole do you lose a 240? Or a case of rounds for the 19? There is definitely some f*ckery afoot, as I find it hard to believe that even the Air Force is capable of those levels of incompetence.

Not sure how much the press hyped this story to make my fellow Security Forces troops look bad, but if they genuinely had no proper control of their weapons/ammo, there better be some asses roasting on the commander's barbecue spit.

I was a USAF Security Policeman (81150 Security Specialist) from Mar 1982 through June 1985. When I served in that profession (45th Missile Security Squadron & 44th Security Police Group Airbase Ground Defense Flight, Ellsworth AFB, SD, (SAC), the "best job I ever had"), we had earned for ourselves a strong and enviable reputation for extreme self-discipline, expertise with small arms and tactical deployment, and we trained exhaustively to hone our airbase (and weapons system) defense and ground combat skills. Anyone who so much as mishandled a weapon (let alone lose one) would face immediate (and harsh) discipline, up to and including Article 15, demotion, confinement, and/or court martial.

Whomever these troops were (if all the claims are accurate), this behavior is INEXCUSABLE. It puts a black mark on DECADES of proud and honorable service by hundreds of thousands of USAF Air Policemen, Security Policemen, and today's Security Forces personnel over the generations. No doubt somebody far higher up the chain will repeat it to these dumbasses, but they need to hear it:
"It takes YEARS to earn people's respect, but only moments to lose it."

Somewhere in a basement, a frustrated airman is trying to load Mk-19 rounds into a 240B.