6 GIs Discharged on Arms Charge; Admiral Warned

Six soldiers who tried to smuggle captured Soviet-made rifles home after the invasion of Grenada were court-martialed, kicked out of the service and imprisoned, but the admiral who commanded the entire operation got only a “caution” for doing the same thing, officials said today.

According to U.S. Customs Service officials, Vice Adm. Joseph Metcalf III and several senior aides were prevented from unloading 24 captured AK-47 automatic rifles on Nov. 3, 1983, as they returned from the 1983 Grenada operation. The weapons were seized by customs agents at the Norfolk Naval Air Station, Va., who then turned the case over to the Naval Investigative Service.

A Navy spokesman, Capt. Brent Baker, issued a statement confirming Metcalf’s involvement. It said he had been “cautioned regarding the capture and disposition of enemy weapons following a battle” and “is now in compliance with . . . regulations. The Navy considers the matter closed.”

By contrast, five men from the Army’s 82nd Airborne at Ft. Bragg, N.C., were court-martialed, fined, imprisoned and mustered out of the service for attempting to bring back weapons to the United States from Grenada, the Army said.

At least one Marine was court-martialed and kicked out of the service, and another is still facing charges, a Marine spokesman said.

Metcalf, 56, at the time of the invasion of Grenada was the commander of the Navy’s Atlantic Second Fleet. He has since been promoted to the post of deputy chief of operations for surface warfare.

In the case of the military, the regulations on Control and Registration of War Trophies and War Trophy Firearms specifically prohibit the importation of any automatic weapon such as the AK-47, specifying that all such arms become the property of the U.S. government.