If its bullshit, there's no need to be sorry, I'm here to learn. We are all adults here, call it like it is and I'll do the same.
And the same ROEs would say you only need to carry 5 mags too. Will you ever need more than 5 mags? Probably not. Ergo, wishing to carry more than 5 mags is obviously stupid. Hardly clear cut. Because something is never SUPPOSE to happen according to the ROE card it never will right? Before I get bogged down in semantics, here I mean of course the situation taking an unexpected turn, not the soldier deciding to invent new ROEs for himself. I'll do the pack drill and decide after the fact whether it happening was "bullshit" or not acording to the ROEs, but most likely at the time I'd rather have the feature and not need it than vice versa.
So, the crux of the issue then is whether the added element of unreliability from the addition of the forward assist (serration of the bolt, etc). outweights the advantage that it may at some point be a useful feature. Actually, in light of MG34's comments, I'm going to agree with him. If it were a personal weapon and I could be sure that the FA has never been misused/abused, then it's another story, but I can't be sure that the FA of an issued weapon hasn't been smaked around a thousand times by the previous owner, and is on the verge of failing. With the info provided by him, I am now(and only now) of the opinion that YES, the FA is a useless feature that does more harm than good. You can be sure that I shall pass on this information to my less experienced/knowledgeble collleagues just as it has been passed on to me here.
Now are we all happy?