Over the Side: Waste and fraud in the Navy

Waste and fraud in the Navy

File cabinets. Metal desks. Brass fire nozzles worth $85 each. A $5,000 oscilloscope. All were dumped into the ocean from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk because its sailors were too lazy to return the items to the vessel's storerooms or to do the needed minor repair work.

So claims Petty Officer First Class Robert Jackson, 26, who served ten months aboard the San Diego-based carrier. Working as an auditor on the ship, he accumulated about 1,100 pages of notes and documents on what he describes as appalling acts of waste, fraud, auditing forgeries and altered books in the handling of spare...

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