excerpt:
"Theft of military equipment is legendary among American war veterans, and the act has its own lexicon. In past wars some called it "scrounging," while others called it "midnight requisitions" and "liberating supplies," said writer and Vietnam War veteran Robert Vaughan.
Military bureaucracy combined with the reality of warfare has long made "scrounging" a necessity for soldiers trying to get a job done, Vaughan said. Stealing is justified, he said, because everything being taken is U.S. government property and is being used toward the war effort.
He recalled that while his unit was serving in a remote area in Vietnam, headquarters in Saigon repeatedly denied his unit's request for high-power generators because it said there were none in stock. But on previous trips to Saigon, Vaughan had seen dozens of generators stacked in a holding area at headquarters.
Frustrated, he drove to Saigon one afternoon, posed as a captain from another unit and gave a guard a forged requisition to get the generators."
link:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0412120352dec12,1,3302014.story?coll=chi-news-hed