President Truman, as a Lt. in WWI, was allowed to keep his issued 1917 revolver. It was donated by Truman after he was president to a museum (not sure if is is the Smithsonian, or a presidential exhibit somewhere, or what). Countless officers of WWI and WWII were allowed to keep or purchase their issued sidearms (see the General Officer's Models and history). Probably half of the unaltered M1 rifles and M1 carbines from WWII were "liberated" by soldiers....most all the ones that remained in inventory have been altered by upgrades and replaced parts over the terms of their service before being sold through the DCM. I am not advocating stealing issued weapons, although that's exactly what it was at the end of WWII, but they may have been going to a scrapheap, dumped in the ocean, burned, or otherwise destroyed or abandoned in many cases (I know of a bunch of Thompson SMG's buried in the sand off the coast of Ascension Island in the Atlantic at the end of the war; my father-in-law was part of the detail that buried them). Foreign weapons that would otherwise be destroyed are prime candidates for repatriation to the US under some kind of supervised souvenir plan, should the military see fit. Why not dewatted AK's. permanently welded, etc? By ATF, they could be classified as "non-weapons", if BATF saw fit to do so. Could they be reactivated? Maybe, but not any easier than it would be to BUILD one from a parts kit and fabricated receiver. IF one WANTS to be illegal, there is always a way, but there are also those who comply, fill out all the blanks, and have dummy, dewat, or other non-guns in compliance of the laws, too. A vet bringback that followed set guidlines for persons not prohibited does not seem like a problem to me. Many of you naysayers are writing an awful lot of criminal intent and assumed social disapproval into this. Deactivated machineguns are wallhangers, and many have even been accepted in gun-hating countries like Great Britain and Canada for many years.