I thought I saw some articles, saying that with the afghans, at least, having an M4 variant was seen as being more high speed. And that they saw it as a status symbol. I think I only read it once or twice, kind of around when we left, and they were able to get a hold a lot of them to you. Some thing about fights over who would get the old M4s.

I know the general movement has been towards shorter barreled rifles, but I still think an RPK is a pretty bad ass looking battle implement .