With U.S. government deficits at all-time highs, politicians on both sides of the aisle are constantly seeking ways to trim spending, often in the military. But while responsible stewardship of taxpayer money is one of the Army’s duties, the media all too often takes a snippet of findings uncovered during investigations conducted by the Army’s Inspectors General and presents them in a way that does not reveal the total context of what was truly discovered.
The most recent example can be found behind the headlines that screamed that the Department of Defense had “lost” $6.5 trillion dollars. But anyone who took the time to read the report—which was authored by the Office of Inspector General of the United States Department of Defense, not The Inspector General of the Army—would discover within the first two or three pages that nowhere was the claim made that funds were “missing.” Instead, the investigation revealed that was the amount of transactions that were not adequately documented. In other words, it didn’t meant the money was lost, or embezzled, or magically vanished, nor did it mean that the goods or services for which it was earmarked were never obtained. All it really meant was that the transaction was not properly recorded.
The good news behind such stories is that, as misleading as they are, they give the Army and other branches of the military even more motivation to ensure their accounting systems are up-to-date and accurate.
Related U.S. Army Infantry Items