So I’ve been won­der­ing this and I fig­ured it’d be best to ask peo­ple who may have the expe­ri­ence; what hap­pens if a ser­vice mem­ber los­es their weapon/equipment in a com­bat zone? (Rifles, mag­a­zines, you get the point.) Is there a seri­ous penal­ty? Do you have to lit­er­al­ly go back and find it lat­er? When I say com­bat zone I don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly mean a town or what­ev­er, but just any­where that an engage­ment has occurred.

I ask this because I’ve heard hor­ror sto­ries where some­one would lose equip­ment in an engage­ment (I believe it was some­thing rather expen­sive and small) and when all was said and done they had to go back and get it. But, I’ve also heard oth­er answers where you could lose rank, be dis­charged, etc. I fig­ured the last one may be hyper­bol­ic, but at the same time I have no way of know­ing because nobody is very clear on it.