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I enjoyed perusing pawn shops near stateside military installations while I was in service. They had the usual fare plus individual soldiering equipment (e.g. uniforms, canteens, backpacks...etc.) which was nice for civilian pursuits like camping and such. My co-workers and I; however, would periodically check them out in search of military issue professional equipment.
Some GIs figured out that they could arrange to "lose" professional equipment while on local field training exercises. It could "accidently" happen in rough terrain, during parachute drops, water crossings and other higher risk operations many of which are performed under cover of darkness. The GIs would cache the equipment, note its location, report it as lost, retrieve it later and pawn it. If the GIs could come up with a convincing story, it would be chalked up as an operational loss and they'd get away with it. If the loss was determined to be due to negligence (their story wasn't quite good enough), the cost of the equipment could be deducted from their paychecks. To them it was worth the risk whether it turned out to be a freebie; or, a lump sum cash advance now from a pawn shop against military payroll deductions later.
Once the loss was settled, no one was looking for the equipment. The pawn shop could sell it and it was perfectly legal to buy as long as it wasn't a restricted military item. I've purchased some military issue medical equipment/instruments that way and got great deals. I've seen military issue specialty equipment in pawn shops where the staff didn't even know what it was let alone what it was worth. They just bought and sold the items as novelties. Good times.
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