When I was in Advanced Infantry training I had a Demo Kit Knife I had carried as a kid still with me. That first night at the reception station when they had every one turn in their knives I looked a drill Sargeant dead in the eye and pocketed my pocket knife and he grinned and walked on. It was very handy for the next nine weeks....and everyone that had carried a pocket knife before the service had bought one at the PX by week two ( so why did they confiscate them that first night?)
Second week into advanced Infantry training and I was sitting on my foot locker ( we had the thin wall locker and foot locker rather than the double door wall locker) and using my demo kit knife in a barracks busy with prepping for a three nighter we would leave on in the morning and my Demo kit knife grew legs. One second it was there and then it was gone.......someone else decided "finder's keeper's" even if they found it on some one else's foot locker with the owner sitting next to it!. I hope who ever applied the five finger discount got good use of it.
TO say the least I was bummed out. My PaPa gave me that knife. He had been rebuilding a WWII barracks into office space at Moody AFB near Valdosta and his crew found a metal 5 gallon paint bucket with the holed flange type lid. They were instructed to dispose of it and in those days before haz mat concerns were headed to a dumpster when one guys said "Hadn't we aught to see what's in it?" It was full of those pocket knives individually wrapped in wax paper. PaPa took a few and gave one to me. It was an older model with a stud on the screw driver blade that was perfect for pushing out the clip guide/oprod/ lifter arm pin on an M1 Garand, BTW, which I used it for in high school. Carried it every where. Work School and since it was stainless swimming. I even carried it off to The Citadel and managed to not have an upper classman take it for that semester of wasted time that I would not take a million bucks for, but was actually wasted.
I sadly hefted the gear and stuff next AM after breakfast and hiked out into the wilds of Louisiana in mid summer without a pocket knife. After a day of hot marching, demo classes and classes on the M113A1 APC (see the DMZ, in your APC, your mother doesn't love you anyway) ( no apologies to Chevrolet and yes we sang that) we marched into a camp site and began putting up shelter halves. Being a good former Boy Scout, I cleaned the area I was pitching my tent (and as platoon guide and odd man out, I had to carry two shelter halves and sets of poles and stakes and rope, but got a private tent from the deal). When I unrolled my tanker roll there on the ground just cleared of sticks and MG belt links and such was a small two bladed folder. Not a spot of rust on it, still had a bit of LSA smell to it, Couldn't have been there more than a week. Little 1&3/4 inch main blade and rounded one inch on the other end. I felt whole again, sure it lacked the ever useful can opener, but a P38 Shellby like the one I already carried on my dog tag chain would work, it had no flat head screw driver, but the armorer had a cat when he found out I had pulled the stock on an M-16A1 to finish pulling the fire controls and pins from it anyway, and it had no handy bale for use with a dummy cord in the field ( and which would have stopped it from walking off if I had used it that way in the barracks) but it was A KNIFE!
I carried that little Tree brand for years before it wandered off. Funny thing is a year and a half after finding that knife I was at a more advanced Demo Course at Vilsek by Graffehower in Germany and one of the instructors asked me about my little Tree which I was using to cut open the plastic wrapper on a block of C4. I told him the story of its finding and the loss of PaPa's knife and he walked over to one of the Demo chests and pulled out a new demo Kit knife...still in the same sort of wax paper wrap my first had been and tossed it to me. He said we would all get one at the end of the week from the school, so I could just have mine early.
I still have that one. So I guess I Found two to replace the one over time.
-kBob
Yesterday evening I made an astonishing roadside discovery. I was kept from my normal exit by a teenaged kid messing with me when I was trying to get into the lane to turn, lo and behold that was a blessing. Next road down I got off at a busy road and pulled up to a red light. As I stopped I noticed a familiar box I hadn’t seen in a while that appeared to be a yellow Buck Knife box. I opened the door and leaned down since the box looked brand new and wasn’t opened...it was brand new not opened. It was in fact a buck nobleman. I now am looking for a jewelry shop to engrave it with my girls names, move-in date, and adoption dates. That makes the 3rd notable find I have made.
