An old story on little springs - officer's basic course back in early '80s. Had a field test phase that included basic soldier skills, including timed M16a1 disassembly/assembly. Setting was a rickety field table under some oaks at Camp Bullis. We had to do complete bolt disassembly including extractor and ejector. Got to the extractor, took it out, forgot to capture extractor spring - ping! Off it flies into the leaf litter on the ground - oh [bleep]. Luckily heard the spring hit the dry leaves and was able to narrow search area to a few inches. Found that little sucker and still got the rifle back together in time! NCO testing just shook his head and marked passed.
