I will never forget the local National Guard doing the 21 gun Veterans’ Day salute in the small cemetery behind the 19th century church in the little village where I grew up in southeastern PA. It was in the early to mid 1950’s and I would look forward not only to the sound of the M-1’s firing but also picking up the brass after the ceremony was over. I was about six years old the first time my mother took me. Fourteen years later we trained on the M-1 in boot camp except the rounds weren’t blanks.
Did you get to keep the brass?