They call them “box cutters,” but everyone on the flightline knows what the term really means. The blades slide out at the push of a button, revealing high-end knives made and marketed for active combat. They cost the federal government hundreds of dollars each — and come free to maintenance workers in the Air Force who order them through the supply system and hand them out as favors.
For nearly a decade, Air Force maintenance units spent more than $1.79 million in taxpayer funds buying 5,166 high-end knives and other luxury items, including switchblades and combat-style tactical knives with no legitimate maintenance use, The Intercept has found. It’s a drop in the bucket of a U.S. military budget creeping ever closer to a trillion dollars, about $300 billion of which belongs to the Air Force. But with a military budget so bloated, the knife-ordering frenzy illustrates how obviously frivolous spending can go unchecked.
“Everyone knew we didn’t need them,” said a former noncommissioned officer recently honorably discharged from Hill Air Force Base. “There was literally zero justification in any maintenance field.”
I don’t doubt that. I also don’t want to deny a service member a knife. I carry one and think it’s pretty fucking handy.
My first point is that a serviceable utilitarian fixed-blade knife is in the $30-$50 range. With the service-member markup that is not anywhere near $300.
My second point is that buying a tool is about meeting the utilitarian need first. Maybe an entry level knife might not hold up as well as a mid-range of the same design, but as the price goes up, you are getting diminishing returns on utility. It might be off an assembly line, but anything over $50 is still a luxury.