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OK, I gotta ask. Why was it a gig and verbotten to sharpen a bayonet, and why would doing so render it unserviceable? Is that a training thing?
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It was not a training thing, it was a
regulations thing. Right or wrong, sensible or barking stupid, the regs are the regs, and until/unless the regs change, GIs are stuck with them. During the time I was in the Army (75-78) the regs said bayonets will be pointed and not sharpened. So finding a bayonet in the arms room that someone had put an edge on (
) was a gig.
And a sharpened bayonet didn't met the regulation spec for being unsharpened, and so therefore, was "unserviceable".
I did not say unusable, in the real world. Guys in the field, on the sharp end, (in combat or combat zones) get a lot of lee way, about many things. Any officer or NCO taking away a bayonet from a soldier on the perimeter because it was sharpened probably wouldn't be in that position very long.
After the troops are back in garrison, like back in the states, and their arms room got inspected, often a lot of the bayonets needed replacement, because they were "unserviceable".
One of the things we used to say (NOT OFFICIAL) was that there were three ways to do anything. The Right way, the Wrong way, and the ARMY way.
TO the Army, the only right way was the Army way. In reality, sometimes the Army way was the right way, sometimes the Army way was the wrong way, and often the Army way was the worst of both worlds.