Military.com:
U.S. Embassy Marines in Yemen handed over their M-9 pistols and M-4 carbines before evacuating the chaotic country with diplomatic personnel, the Pentagon said Wednesday.
The Marines also left behind several vehicles at the airport in the capital city of Sanaa before departing on a civilian flight, said Army Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman.
Warren said the Marines destroyed their machine guns and other crew-served weapons before leaving the Embassy for the airport. He also said that it was unclear who now had custody of the weapons and vehicles that were surrendered.
A Marine spokesman could not immediately say whether the surrender of weapons by Embassy Marines in an evacuation was unprecedented.
[ … ]
Warren also could not say why a civilian charter flight was used rather than military aircraft for the evacuation. He suggested that the handover of weapons may have resulted from international rules barring weapons on a civilian flight.
And another report from Marine Corps Times:
“No Marines handed over a functional weapon to anybody,” the official said.
Each weapon was made inoperable before the Marines’ departure, the official said. It was not clear, he said, whether the Marines damaged the weapons’ barrels, removed rifle bolts, or taken other steps to render them unusable.
The Marine Corps Times is just painting a happy face on the sorry event. The Pentagon “official” is incorrect to suggest that because it was a commercial charter flight firearms weren’t allowed. My own son departed from Cherry Point bound for Iraq with his firearms in hand aboard a commercial chartered flight, as did the rest of the 2/6 Marine Corps.
This is a sad, sorry, horrible, embarrassing, shameful episode in Marine Corps History. I ashamed for them. What on earth has happened to America’s 911 fighting force?
