Not much info in the brief AP article:
They store a lot of stuff there. Not ginourmous fight-a-whole-war quantities, but enough to get the locals’ attention if much of it is missing.
it’s real unclear here whether we have a known recent theft or what we have is the recent uncovering of a bookkeeping problem that may be recent, or may have lain dormant for years.
With luck more news will come out in a week or two; at least enough to give us the shape of what’s going in.
What with all the problems in and around San Diego military bases and the recent unrest, seeing the AP story just sent off all kind of “might be a good idea to pay attention to this” flags.
Or not. Given the amount of training that goes on at 29 Palms, the un-named stuff could have been issued for an exercise and just not gotten recorded as expended. Not likely, but possible. Hell, a complete and thorough audit of any military base is going to uncover all sorts of missing equipment along with material that is not part of the assigned load-out for the units thereon. I’m not going to be too concerned about this until they release the quantity and quality of the “missing” explosives.
I am guessing it’s a paperwork error of some form. Diverting explosives from the magazine would be easier, so I am told, by simply not using all of the material checked out during an exercise. As I read, a boom from 15 pounds of C-4, looks to Range Control a lot like a boom from 20 pounds of C-4. We need to stoke the boogeyman fear, and this is as good a story as any for doing it.
I do wonder how often such paperwork screwups, like I imagine this is, happen in the Armed Forces? I I imagine it’s been a lot of sleepless nights, and things like “Hands Across 29 Palms” for the units in question.
EDIT: for the type of audit @silenus mentioned above me, the novel, “State Scarlet,” (written by a former NSC member) has a very involved one in the beginning of the book, involving the US military’s attempt to do a full inventory on their nuclear weapons stockpile. Hilarity ensues when the count not only comes up with the atomic detonation munition at issue, missing, but 10 other devices…