When I was in High School, ROTC was a required course for all boys. Two years was mandatory with the third year optional. I had made the rifle team and thus took the third year.
The first two years our drill rifles were the M1 Garand. The third year we switched to M-14s. Although we never got to shoot them, we did develop a great love and respect for these fine weapons.
In 1972 I graduated high school and joined the Army. In basic at Ft. Leonard Wood I was issued a M-16A1. I disliked it from the first time I laid my hands on one. I do admit that they were very accurate and easy to shoot. But that was only when you could get the damned thing to work.
Over the next three years I was issued several different M-16A1s and none of them was ever truly reliable. I both experienced and witnessed far to many malfunctions to ever trust those things.
As a driver of a tracked vehicle I was supposed to have a 1911. However, we didn't have enough to go around. One of my best days in the service was the day the armorer took away my M-16 and issued me an old M-3A1 Grease Gun. Now that was a weapon I could trust.

Fast forward to 1999. The Y2K scare was in full bloom and it occurred to me that I didn't own a semi-auto centerfire rifle of any kind and this might be a good time to get one. I went to a gun show. I remember standing in front of a table with an AR-15 in my hands and money in my pocket. But I just couldn't do it. My distrust for the platform ran too deep.
A little while later I came across a guy walking around with a Federal Ordnance M-14A for sale. I bought it and never looked back.
Since then I've added a Springfield Scout/Squad and a Soccom 16 to the safe. These are rifles you can believe in.