Maj. John Plaster Gets His XM177E2 Back, Kinda

By Chris Eger

Plaster, receiving a new XM177E2 from Colt last month, left, contrasted with a slide during his presentation on the weapons of MACV-SOG in the Vietnam conflict, showing him as a Green Beret armed with his original weapon. (Photos: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
After much use in South East Asian locales long classified, Vietnam-era Green Beret John Plaster recently got “his” Colt XM177E2 back.
Plaster, a retired U.S. Army major, served three combat tours between 1968 and 1971 as a member of the secretive MACV-SOG special operations unit that conducted covert operations in Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam War. Since the 1980s, he has gone on to be a noted sniping instructor, author and military historian, penning several non-fiction books and even contributing to popular video games such as Call of Duty: Black Ops.
Plaster recently wrote an article for the NRA’s American Rifleman publication dealing with the use of the CAR-15, an early forerunner of today’s M4, in Vietnam. Relating his personal SOG experience with an issued Colt-made XM177E2 carbine during the article, the Special Forces veteran mentioned that the serial number of his personal gun was 905442, noting the weapon, “saved my life many times.”
Unknown to the Major, now in his late 60s,

Source: Guns.com