"Apparently they were offering the 1911A1's for sale to unit members at (I think) about $150 a piece."
This is simply not possible. The US Army has not sold weapons to individuals (except General Officer personal handguns)since W.W.II.
The individual writing the letter must have been mistaken. Army policy for as long as I can remember (And that goes back to the early '60's) is that individual small arms were reported to the item manager for disposition instructions. They were then either shipped to a depot (Anniston, Red River, etc) for refurbishment and storage as war reserves or they were demilled, as in cut up. A number of handguns, rifles and carbines were permitted to be sold to civilians through the Director of Civilian Marksmanship, but unit sales to individual soldiers would have been in violation of Army policy.
If I am wrong on this, I certainly would appreciate being corrected authoritatively.
Tom A.
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