Author Topic: DoD audit starts.  (Read 4283 times)

just Warren

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DoD audit starts.
« on: January 12, 2018, 04:15:02 PM »
https://www.defense.gov/News/Article/Article/1412459/dod-owes-taxpayers-full-accounting-of-assets-comptroller-tells-house/

Is this a Trump initiative? It seems so because Obama would not have cared to do it.

Quote
An audit will improve accountability, the comptroller said, noting that, for example, an initial Army audit found that 39 UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters were not properly recorded in the property system. “The Air Force identified 478 structures and buildings at 12 installations that were not in its real property system,” he added.

So how many other things will turn up? Or turn out to have never existed yet been paid for?

How do you lose troops?

You can't pick up a phone? Once deployed did they forget how to communicate? Certainly they know where they are, have them drop a postcard in the mail.

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Firethorn

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Re: DoD audit starts.
« Reply #1 on: January 12, 2018, 07:27:56 PM »
At least for the USAF, most of those structures and buildings are things like sheds you can buy from home supply stores - a squadron can afford one, but once installed it becomes 'real property' and needs to be tracked.  They're usually used for storing yard equipment after it's kicked out of the utility room.

Also, for a while gazebos weren't tracked, but they had to input ours into the system - and it's basically four posts and a roof, because it has electrical(a single 15A circuit run from the building).


just Warren

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Re: DoD audit starts.
« Reply #2 on: January 12, 2018, 08:12:26 PM »
Gazebos? Really?

I bet the Marines don't have any gazebos.


As to those lost troops could it be folks who have left the service but the computer systems haven't caught up to that yet?

That is they're not deployed anywhere but they still appear on a unit's roster but obviously aren't stationed there.
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Firethorn

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Re: DoD audit starts.
« Reply #3 on: January 12, 2018, 08:39:09 PM »
Gazebos? Really?

I bet the Marines don't have any gazebos.

They have lots of them.  They're used for morale stuff a lot.  Various parties, burger burns, a few outdoor ceremonies, etc...

Though I should note that ours was a concrete pad and roof, and not more.  Pictured is similar but not our actual unit:


Quote
As to those lost troops could it be folks who have left the service but the computer systems haven't caught up to that yet?

More likely deployed, removed from home station count, but not properly added to their deployed station count.

T.O.M.

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Re: DoD audit starts.
« Reply #4 on: January 12, 2018, 08:40:50 PM »

As to those lost troops could it be folks who have left the service but the computer systems haven't caught up to that yet?

That is they're not deployed anywhere but they still appear on a unit's roster but obviously aren't stationed there.

Nah, just a bunch of butter bars who got lost...somewhere.  Maybe didn't come back from a land nav course.  😜
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Re: DoD audit starts.
« Reply #5 on: January 12, 2018, 08:45:23 PM »
How do you lose troops?

You can't pick up a phone? Once deployed did they forget how to communicate? Certainly they know where they are, have them drop a postcard in the mail.

Isn't that sort of the point of that whole "chain of command" thing?  Send word down that everybody needs to account for everybody under them on down the line, make sure their records are correct and "DO IT RFN, DAMMIT!" and there's really no reason anyone not actually doing something pretty secret under strict radio silence at this very moment shouldn't be figured out in great detail shortly.

just Warren

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Re: DoD audit starts.
« Reply #6 on: January 12, 2018, 09:05:44 PM »
 Pictured is similar but not our actual unit:


That counts as a gazebo? That's not what I was picturing. I was thinking more of the city park type that you step up into and has railings and a peaked roof.
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Jim147

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Re: DoD audit starts.
« Reply #7 on: January 12, 2018, 09:21:51 PM »
Lost troops? They think army and marines can count?
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Hawkmoon

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Re: DoD audit starts.
« Reply #8 on: January 12, 2018, 09:52:57 PM »
Gazebos? Really?

I bet the Marines don't have any gazebos.


As to those lost troops could it be folks who have left the service but the computer systems haven't caught up to that yet?

That is they're not deployed anywhere but they still appear on a unit's roster but obviously aren't stationed there.

I was in Vietnam when the Army still used IBM punch cards as the computer storage medium. Every unit, at the company level, had to submit a morning report that detailed where every person assigned to that unit was. If someone was on leave, he was reported as on leave. If someone was in the hospital, he was reported as in the hospital (and the hospital would be reporting him as in their care). If a person was absent on TDY, he was reported as on TDY. And if we didn't know where someone was, he was reported as AWOL. We had a few of those (AWOLs) when I was stationed at Edgewood Arsenal.

One of them I tracked down by telephone. He was a younger soldier, a draftee, who came from a somewhat well-to-do family and had an atitude that the rules didn't apply to him. One Saturday morning he wasn't there for morning assembly and roll call. I had my suspicions, so I tried to call his family's home. Hmmm ... unlisted number. This was long before the breakup of AT&T ("Ma Bell") and there were still live operators in the system, so I dialed 'O.' I told the operator this was an official call from Headquarters Company, 4th Battalion, First Artillery Regiment, United States Army, and that it was essential for us to contact [___] at such-and-such address. I asked her to put the call through and ask whoever answered to take the call.

It worked. The father came on the line, and admitted that sonny boy was at home. I told him his son was AWOL and that if he didn't get his ass back to the post ASAP the MPs would be making a visit. Sonny boy showed up in time for Sunday roll call, and the First sergeant didn't say anything more (publicly, but I believe there was a rather terse meeting between sonny boy and the CO and Top Sergeant).

We had another one we suspected had gone off to spend time with his girlfriend in Baltimore. Top sent me and the duty driver to her address. I went around to the back yard. The driver knocked on the front door, and I caught Private Goober as he came running out the back door. Oops.

Troops did occasionaly get lost in the system, but in general someone had to really screw the pooch for it to happen for more than a day or two. And this was decades before modern computer networks.
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KD5NRH

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Re: DoD audit starts.
« Reply #9 on: January 12, 2018, 10:56:02 PM »
I was in Vietnam when the Army still used IBM punch cards as the computer storage medium.

Last week?

Hawkmoon

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Re: DoD audit starts.
« Reply #10 on: January 12, 2018, 11:16:18 PM »
Last week?

1968. Is the Army still using punch cards?
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KD5NRH

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Re: DoD audit starts.
« Reply #11 on: January 12, 2018, 11:21:26 PM »
1968. Is the Army still using punch cards?

IIRC, it was some .gov office that bought up keypunch, reader and stock of surplus cards from the local university not that long ago.  Maybe 2006...after Y2K, at any rate.  It was disturbing enough that a small town university was just getting around to selling the stuff, and more so that any .gov entity had a use for it.

Then I found out it wasn't the last one; they still had another reader in storage so they could eventually read in the last of the old records.

Firethorn

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Re: DoD audit starts.
« Reply #12 on: January 13, 2018, 04:01:00 AM »
That counts as a gazebo? That's not what I was picturing. I was thinking more of the city park type that you step up into and has railings and a peaked roof.

It still counts as one.  It's a freestanding roofed structure open on all sides.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gazebo


dm1333

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Re: DoD audit starts.
« Reply #13 on: January 13, 2018, 07:24:51 AM »
Firethorn is right, I can see two gazebos from where I work and the Marine Corps is building a third right next to the building my office is in. 

The audit isn't new, DOD has been going through it as long as DHS has but they have never had a clean audit. 

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Re: DoD audit starts.
« Reply #14 on: January 13, 2018, 09:37:36 AM »
I wonder if that's why this happened:

This week, our maintenance squadron recently rounded up a bunch of "Found On Base" aircraft parts that they couldn't account for.  Not being sure of their state of serviceability, they were identified as either "condemned" or "repairable" and tagged as such.  Then they were brought over to my section for shipment to whichever DRMO depot was responsible for evaluating that particular item.

So they bring over a crate of all this "junk."  Looking through the paperwork, there had to be at least $2 mil of parts in there.  A single thingy (don't recall what it was off the top of my head) was tagged as radioactive so we had to have Bio come over to scan it (Cs-137, no detectable activity).  That single part was $241k.

I wonder if this house cleaning is in advance of the audit.
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Ben

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Re: DoD audit starts.
« Reply #15 on: January 13, 2018, 09:50:07 AM »
Audits, at least regarding inventory, have been an annual thing throughout gov AFAIK. I don't think we ever got through one clean either. It was always interesting to find out someone had binos or a camera lens or something at home "for research".

Our inventory person used to like that time of year because despite the frustration, she got to go inventory stuff assigned to me, some of which was remote, so she got a ride along and got a few good hikes out of the deal.  :laugh:

dm1333 - do you guys barcode the boats/ships? We did ours, which I always thought kind of comical.
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HankB

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Re: DoD audit starts.
« Reply #16 on: January 13, 2018, 10:05:16 AM »
I remember reading a newspaper story about a "lost" soldier - it seemed really odd - I wish I'd kept the clipping.

The soldier was going on leave right before a transfer, but his last written order said something about going home and "awaiting further orders."

So he waited . . . and waited . . . and waited.

Years passed. He got another job, got married, had kids. And was still waiting . . . and waiting . . . and waiting.

Finally a couple of MPs showed up and grabbed him as a deserter. His lawyer pointed out he was obeying his WRITTEN orders - and of course, the Army knew where he was since he kept getting his paychecks! I think he may even have gotten a promotion or two.

They tried to get him to NOT fight the charges "for the good of the service" . . . but he was having none of that.

He ended up with an honorable discharge and retirement pay. (He'd been "awaiting further orders" for THAT long.)
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MechAg94

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Re: DoD audit starts.
« Reply #17 on: January 13, 2018, 12:13:07 PM »
I remember reading a newspaper story about a "lost" soldier - it seemed really odd - I wish I'd kept the clipping.

The soldier was going on leave right before a transfer, but his last written order said something about going home and "awaiting further orders."

So he waited . . . and waited . . . and waited.

Years passed. He got another job, got married, had kids. And was still waiting . . . and waiting . . . and waiting.

Finally a couple of MPs showed up and grabbed him as a deserter. His lawyer pointed out he was obeying his WRITTEN orders - and of course, the Army knew where he was since he kept getting his paychecks! I think he may even have gotten a promotion or two.

They tried to get him to NOT fight the charges "for the good of the service" . . . but he was having none of that.

He ended up with an honorable discharge and retirement pay. (He'd been "awaiting further orders" for THAT long.)
If he didn't fight the charges, they probably would have tried to get him to pay back all the past pay. 
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MechAg94

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Re: DoD audit starts.
« Reply #18 on: January 13, 2018, 12:14:56 PM »
Might thought on the missing soldiers is to do a quick check of where the paychecks are getting sent (multiple to same account?).  But y'all are right it is probably just failure to account for transfers/changes.
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Hawkmoon

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Re: DoD audit starts.
« Reply #19 on: January 13, 2018, 12:23:17 PM »
I wonder if that's why this happened:

This week, our maintenance squadron recently rounded up a bunch of "Found On Base" aircraft parts that they couldn't account for.  Not being sure of their state of serviceability, they were identified as either "condemned" or "repairable" and tagged as such.  Then they were brought over to my section for shipment to whichever DRMO depot was responsible for evaluating that particular item.

So they bring over a crate of all this "junk."  Looking through the paperwork, there had to be at least $2 mil of parts in there.  A single thingy (don't recall what it was off the top of my head) was tagged as radioactive so we had to have Bio come over to scan it (Cs-137, no detectable activity).  That single part was $241k.

I wonder if this house cleaning is in advance of the audit.

Yep. Classic -- get it out'a here and let somebody else worry about how to inventory it.
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Scout26

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Re: DoD audit starts.
« Reply #20 on: January 13, 2018, 02:13:46 PM »
Sooooo, one giant Change of Command Inventory.... [popcorn] [popcorn] [popcorn]
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dm1333

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Re: DoD audit starts.
« Reply #21 on: January 13, 2018, 07:09:25 PM »
Audits, at least regarding inventory, have been an annual thing throughout gov AFAIK. I don't think we ever got through one clean either. It was always interesting to find out someone had binos or a camera lens or something at home "for research".

Our inventory person used to like that time of year because despite the frustration, she got to go inventory stuff assigned to me, some of which was remote, so she got a ride along and got a few good hikes out of the deal.  :laugh:

dm1333 - do you guys barcode the boats/ships? We did ours, which I always thought kind of comical.

No bar codes on boats, cutters or aircraft but those assets are all accounted for on personal property reports.  But at my last station they put a bar code on 2 of the 4 permanent buildings and the flagpole.  And the Storekeeper they sent out to do that wasn't amused when I asked if the station dog needed a bar code tag.   :rofl:

HankB

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Re: DoD audit starts.
« Reply #22 on: January 14, 2018, 12:17:08 AM »
No bar codes on boats, cutters or aircraft but those assets are all accounted for on personal property reports.  But at my last station they put a bar code on 2 of the 4 permanent buildings and the flagpole.  And the Storekeeper they sent out to do that wasn't amused when I asked if the station dog needed a bar code tag.  :rofl:
On the note of military audits and property accounting, science fiction writers seem to think they'll be with us forever.

Here's a link to one of my favorite science fiction short stories, Allamagoosa by Eric Fran Russell, which deals with audits in the future . . . and the negative consequences that occur when they don't go well.     

ALLAMAGOOSA
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Firethorn

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Re: DoD audit starts.
« Reply #23 on: January 14, 2018, 04:55:09 AM »
Might thought on the missing soldiers is to do a quick check of where the paychecks are getting sent (multiple to same account?).  But y'all are right it is probably just failure to account for transfers/changes.

Electronic direct deposit, in my case, to an account that I've had over the course of 5 states and 4 countries.

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Re: DoD audit starts.
« Reply #24 on: January 14, 2018, 01:05:18 PM »
Re: gazebos
Military bases are small cities often, including parks and recreational areas.  With populations that are isolated, decent public spaces are useful.
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