USAF won’t let pilots carry personal side arm even if they supply own ammo. True? Why?
It would seem that when it is your own life on the line what you carry should be your decision.
Probably, the military is not really gun friendly and is very big on uniformity of equipment. There are some good reasons for that. What happens when the guy runs out of his personal stash of ammo? Have "mamma" send some more from home?
However wasn't always so, or at least the powers that were may have been a little more willing to look the other way in a less PC environment than today's military has. My reserve CO carried a .44 magnum as an AF intelligence officer in Southeast Asia. (In those days the issue sidearm for AF pilots and rear area types was a .38 revolver) I've read that one guy had his own .444 Marlin lever action that he used as a "bunker buster".