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December 29, 2000

One of the shortages you don't expect in the U.S. Army is small arms (rifle and machinegun) ammunition. But this is the case. There have been numerous incidents in 2000 where ammo was not available so that troops could do their annual live fire qualification on their M-16s. Apparently, the shortages have been showing up in the United States and overseas for at least two years. Rifle ammunition isn't terribly expensive as things go in the 300 billion dollar a year defense budget, but apparently it got muscled out by more urgent considerations.