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William, I am a veteran. I didn't state that the troops were getting rich. "Rich" was in reference to the attitude expressed, considering how much of our debt is because of military spending. Spending on the military industrial complex. To add insult to injury, they cannot tell us where half of their budget was spent. Everyone knows it s…
William, I am a veteran. I didn't state that the troops were getting rich. "Rich" was in reference to the attitude expressed, considering how much of our debt is because of military spending. Spending on the military industrial complex. To add insult to injury, they cannot tell us where half of their budget was spent. Everyone knows it sure as hell didn't go to the troops. AND you can bet that payroll didn't fail THEIR audit!
And on that I agree. My career included being responsible for putting together a budget, which would be sent to higher headquarters and weaved into their budget and so on up the line, until my small part became part of the defense budget.
There were no audits, in truth, an audit is impossible, because, just about everything military, including personnel, are expendable and it is impossible to keep records on expendables.
Stores, like Kroger can, they have scanners, which add and subtract from inventory. Their is no way to keep track of military supplies. Can you imagine a soldier signing out for X number of bullets, or cannon shells, even parachutes. Parachutes are equipment, and some form of control is exercised over parachutes, but they do get damaged, and often in operations after getting the troop to the ground, they are abandoned, of necessity.
During my 26 year career, I was everything from an enlisted slug, doing a job, which only required paper, carbon paper, typewriter ribbon, food and quarters, to commanding a spec ops team., in which everything we used was expendable, and the only real controls were over weapons, serial numbers had to be accounted for, even the parachutes were expendable, when damaged we didn't turn them in, because they couldn't be safely repaired and re used, if a suspension line broke, the chute was unserviceable.
The record keeping from soldier, sailor, marine, airman to headquarters is impossible.
Imagine an artillery crew or a machine gunner, trying to keep tabs on every piece of ammo expended. I am trying to visualize the pilot of an A10, or a crew served weapon, trying to keep track of the thousands of rounds of ammo expended, and when back at base, reporting to the company or squadron commander, the amount of ammunition spewed by a mini gun (the "gatling" gun, electronically fired, that spits out 6,000 rounds of minute and what you hear is not the pop of a gun, or the rat a tat of a sewing machine, but a brrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
There is some validity, in principle, to your complaint but in real life it is totally impracticable, and trying to comply would harm national defense, which is something that our enemies like Putin, Kim, Xi and Iran would embrace.