Keeping war trophies a slippery slope

[Woodmonkey]

OCEANSIDE, Calif. — It might not get you into as much trouble, but that little Tabasco bottle filled with Iraqi sand is as illegal as a fully automatic AK47.

Both items violate federal rules for bringing stuff back from the war zone. Sure, the feds don’t routinely raid houses in the middle of the night looking for tiny bottles of dirt, but U.S. Customs officials are serious about keeping foreign soil from leaving foreign soil, fearful that bugs and germs could be spread from overseas.

Unfortunately, the rules and regulations for bringing home war trophies and other souvenirs from combat zones are often vague, and interpretations vary from command to command. Many people choose to bring nothing back for fear of landing in hot water, while some throw caution to the wind and sneak back items that any recruit knows are bad news.

War trophies
Consider the case of Sgt. Leonardo San Juan Jr., a reconnaissance Marine who was indicted by a federal grand jury Nov. 29 in San Diego for possessing an illegal AK47 assault rifle.

The case began in 2006, when San Juan’s then-fiancee told an instructor at an Oceanside indoor shooting range of 50 AK47 machine guns that her boyfriend had sneaked in from Iraq and stored in their garage. The woman, who is now San Juan’s wife, “elaborated that he would sneak them back in medical kit bags,” according to government documents filed with the U.S. District Court in San Diego.

The range instructor, a Marine reservist, notified police. Agents with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service searched the apartment and garage three days later and found one AK47 machine gun amid a stash of military clothing and gear belonging to San Juan, court documents state.

The AK47 was “a functional, fully-automatic,” weapon made in Bulgaria in 1969 and “issued to the Iraqi National Forces,” according to the documents. The weapon was not registered in the federal firearms database, as is required by law, and San Juan wasn’t authorized or registered to possess a fully automatic weapon, the documents state. San Juan was charged by the federal government, and his trial was scheduled for the morning of June 2.

But the sergeant instead accepted a plea deal with federal prosecutors, and he is expected to be fined during sentencing later this summer.

Know the rules
Collecting war souvenirs is a practice as old as combat itself. Roman armor, Spartan shields and other spoils of war often were displayed as war trophies, and relics from modern-day battles have found homes in museums, quarterdecks and living rooms.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that it happens all the time,” said Jane Siegel, a retired colonel and attorney in San Marcos, Calif. “All you have to do is to go into the senior headquarters buildings and you see all the junk that is displayed.

“I know officers who have brought souvenirs back home and who had them framed in their dens,” Siegel said, noting that theater regulations at the early stages of the Afghanistan and Iraq operations were “very specific” and provided few exceptions.

Service members in World War II and Vietnam faced fewer rules than those in place today. Military regulations and international laws of war prevent the pillaging of government property, personal items and black-market goods, and control what service members are allowed to bring home. The Corps’ standing order on “Control and Registration of War Trophies and War Trophy Firearms” — MCO 5800.6A — dates back to 1969, when the rules began to tighten as Vietnam began winding down.

War trophies aren’t by themselves illegal, and military regulations and U.S. federal law permit some keepsakes. But the rules are vague and often don’t state exactly what’s OK and what’s not; sometimes, interpretations have varied.

Dirt and rocks are prohibited, as are artwork and rugs taken from a house. Some knives and bayonets are allowed, but not all. Some captured weapons are allowed but must be rendered unserviceable in accordance with federal firearms laws.

General Order No. 1B, issued by U.S. Central Command on March 13, 2006, spells out the rules for service members in the Middle East. The order prohibits: “Taking or retaining of public or private property of an enemy or former enemy. ... Individual war souvenirs may only be acquired if specifically authorized by USCENTCOM. Absent such express authorization, no weapon, munitions or military article of equipment obtained or acquired by any means other than official issue may be retained for personal use or shipped out of the USCENTCOM [area of operations] for personal retention.”

Commanders, “when based on military necessity,” can seize private or public property, and “unit retention of historical artifacts must be specifically approved by USCENTCOM,” the order states. It also permits tourist souvenirs that can be legally brought into the U.S. but bans “enemy war material” even if it can be legally bought.

General Order No. 1B — which also famously bans alcohol and pornography — applies to uniformed members in the combat theater, as well as most contingency contractor personnel serving with, accompanying or employed by the armed forces.

The order supersedes the previous version, General Order No. 1A, issued in 2000 and revised in 2001 and 2003, which held a more relaxed standard for many items.

The existing order rescinds all waivers issued by General Order No. 1A, making it unclear what happens to those war trophies that once were permitted.

Enforcing the law
Officials say service members who violate the order by bringing illegal or unauthorized war trophies to the U.S. risk possible criminal charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, such as violating a general order, Article 92, and larceny and wrongful appropriation, Article 121.

“The commander, whatever level that may be — battalion commander, regimental commander, division commander, et cetera — can dispose of a case in a certain way, i.e., from no punishment to a general court-martial,” said Lt. Col. Sean Gibson, a Marine Corps Forces-Central Command spokesman.

U.S. Customs agents at airfields and departure points, such as Kuwait and Balad Air Base in Iraq, inspect military personnel before they leave the combat zone. Defense transportation laws dictate what is allowed or prohibited on military transports, and federal postal laws restrict what you are allowed to send by U.S. mail.

“Our job is to really enforce the regulations that all sorts of agencies have,” said Michael Friel, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman in Washington.

Items considered contraband are confiscated by military or law enforcement authorities, but service members often can ditch suspected illegal items in amnesty boxes.

Service members must fill out Defense Department Form 603-1 and get approval from superiors before they can take home their war trophies, but that doesn’t mean souvenirs can’t include odd items. Retired Col. Gary Wilson had to get approval to bring home two fragments from a rocket that exploded in a 2005 roadside bomb, wounding him and others, and damaging his vehicle.

The paperwork drill “wasn’t so bad,” Wilson said. “I had to take it down to the [staff judge advocate] and I had to get the CO to sign it.” The shrapnel now sits in a closet in his California house.

“I don’t remember it being a big deal until 2005 or 2006,” he said of the regulations, “because people were moving stuff back, stuff they had picked up, like bayonets and helmets.”

Gibson said he did not have comprehensive statistics on the number of MarCent cases or investigations into illegal war trophies. Requests for similar data from Central Command, Customs and Border Patrol, and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service were pending as of June 6.

Military restrictions of war trophies are designed to control illegal weapons or controlled items from entering the U.S. Safety is also a concern, especially when some want to keep ammunition or explosives as keepsakes.

“Leave it to a Marine,” Siegel said, “and they’ll blow themselves up.” Such incidents “are exactly the type of thing that the order is designed to prevent.”

What not to do
Some cases of war-zone souvenirs have made headlines in recent years:

* In 2003, Sgt. Mark S. Hoerber of Miami boarded the amphibious assault ship Saipan with members of 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade carrying a fragmentation round packed with his gear. A round exploded in a trash can in a berthing space May 7, 2003, wounding 10 Marines, one of them seriously. In 2004, Hoerber admitted having a war souvenir but denied his trophy caused the explosion. He was convicted at court-martial, confined for a month and busted in rank.

* Gunnery Sgt. Gary Maziarz allegedly took a stash of Iraq war booty, including AK47s, Dragunov sniper rifles and pistols. Maziarz was prosecuted in 2007 and agreed to a plea deal that gave him a 26-month sentence in exchange for testifying in an ongoing federal intelligence breach investigation.

* An Army Green Beret, Sgt. 1st Class David N. Kellerman, was indicted by a federal grand jury in 2006 and later charged with attempting to import stolen firearms and explosives from Afghanistan. Among the items he allegedly collected were grenades, high-powered weapons and C4 explosives. A search of his personal boat found several unregistered firearms, including three fully-automatic machine guns, an AK47, a Sterling 9mm and a Russian 7.62mm, according to court documents filed in the case, being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

* In one guns-for-cash-and-drugs plot, seven British soldiers were convicted of smuggling AK47s, pistols, ammunition and other weapons from Iraq in 2005 and 2006. In 2005, a British Royal Marine who brought back weapons, including an AK47, rocket-propelled grenade launcher and 60mm mortar, got a two-year sentence.

* Customs agents in 2002 confiscated sheep skulls carried by some Marines at Camp Lejeune, N.C, upon their beach return from Afghanistan, according to a 2003 Pentagon news release.

The Source

[bhdean]

This reminds me of an episode of Antiques Roadshow that I was watching a few years ago. A man had a set of dueling pistols that his father had brought back from Germany during World War II. He had somehow gotten the pistols of King Ludwig the Bulvarian and smuggled them out of the country and they were still in the families possession. It seems completely wrong to me that the man has not attempted to return an item of historical significance to the country of origin. I know it must seem like a small matter to us, but how would we feel if someone took George Washington's uniform, the Declaration of Independence, or the Liberty Bell as a trophy. Would that have an impact about the way we viewed that country 50 to 100 years down the road. An AK47 smuggled out of IRAQ may not seem like much but it may be more significant it the same weapon had belonged to Saddam or one his sons.

[filthybeast]

Things were looser during The Viet Nam War.

[Woodmonkey]

Seems to me that soldiers always take trophys of one kind or another. The dangerous or illegal (AK47's) ones should be illegal, but let them take something.