[Milsurplus] Re: Military manuals wastage

[J Forster]

It does seem mindless given the perspective of time, but at the time it was done it made
sense.

Most organizations only care about current operations. It's a rare company that puts aside
one of everything as a time capsule for the future. Even HP does not have an archive of
every piece of paper they ever put out, and to their credit, they are trying to rebuild it
at company expense.

Also, consider the orders to destroy. The damage or injury caused by having the wrong
manual (outdated or wrong for example) is a much more important than preservation to
support some future collector.

Storing obsolete manuals takes huge amounts of time and space. My modest manual collection
(mostly non-mil) is about 20 5 drawer filing cabinets full and must weigh tons. And much
of it has newver been properly filed.

If all the old manuals were kept and archived, the pile would likely to reach the moon or
further.

Sad, but true,
-John



Hue Miller wrote:

> I recently bought maybe a hundred some ex-US Army manuals from an estate
> disposal. The base where this gentleman worked, the policy was to destroy the
> manuals, burn them i think i was told, when a newer edition manual was issued,
> or when the equipment itself became obsoleted. Instead, this gentleman took
> the manuals for himself.  So by not mindlessly doing his "duty", he is to be
> thanked by me and for possibly future generations for saving these manuals.
> There really is a socially valuable role for the "saver"  ( as long as he's not saving
> old food boxes, newspapers, etc. hi hi. )
> Which as Glenn points out, WE citizens have already paid for.
> WHY would this organization, the US Army, think a manual such as "Theory of
> Quartz Crystals" should be destroyed????
> I think the larger an organization becomes, the dumber it gets. I have saved
> manuals and power supplies from the dumpster at my own employer- i'm sure
> the same wastage goes on all across the board. -Hue Miller