My little detachment had all kinds of guns, but all of the guys on roving patrol carried revolvers, Smiths if they could get them, for our "roll out" guns, or for the rats. No one would touch a 1911-lots of problems with them. Not many liked to depend on m-16's either. When I got in country, there were still m-14's, but after a couple months they took them away. I had qualified with both, but didn't like the 16 from jump street. In AIT we had to familiarize with the 1911, the 11-C's had to qualify with it-one guy out of a company bareley made a good enough score after a whole day on the range, and he had been shooting hand guns with his dad since age 8! The range NCO's were busy with locked up guns,and all kinds of other stuff. I was no pistilero, but I had been out by myself with a .22 rifle(WIN 1890) since I was seven, which was the way in my family, and I had a good sence about guns, and I didn't like the 1911's at all. Bad stuff happened around both of those guns. I had a 4 inch M-10 pencil that I got from a "civillian" for 60 bucks, if I remember it right, I slept with it. It was in beautiful shape, and came with a bunch of lead bullet loaded ammo that really went bang! If you all remember, the QC's and White Mice carried 38's, so maybe someone was loading for them(?) We were jeep borne, so we all had cross draw set ups of some kind. I finally bought a 1911 this year on its anniversary, after reading a couple of years ago that the last 1911's that the army bought were from 1943! Those were the newest ones, so some of the guys might have been handed one from a long time before that. The ones I saw rattled so bad that a decent VC mortor squad could braket you just from the noise! So I had an aversion to them, and couldn't figure what all the excitement was about with 1911's all these years (?) So I got educated, and now the .45ACP is one of my favorite rounds-both pistol and revolver. The jury is still out on anything that is a first cousin to an m-16-at least the ones that are "direct impingement" opperated. But I filled the slot with a much better gun, an AK-47. Charlie had that part right in my view, and it's nice to be on the sending end of one now. Some great posts and photos, welcome home guys. As for me, I wouldn't be here, and wouldn't want to be, if not for the Lord. Flapjack.