Here's
a story of a Brit Submariner who got caught doing a boondoggle -- a luxury Med cruise with his wife under the guise of "Surface Ship Familiarisation (sic)". Excerpt:
Details of Commander Dunn’s cruise, from October 24 to November 8 this year, emerged after the Ministry of Defence answered a Freedom of Information request, referring to his voyage as a ‘Surface Ship Familiarisation’ mission.
The trip was sanctioned under the Merchant Navy Liaison Voyage Scheme, designed to foster relations between the Navy and commercial vessels. In the past 12 months, 53 Royal Navy and Royal Marines officers have taken advantage of the scheme.
Commander Dunn was the commanding officer of HMS Vigilant, a Vanguard-class submarine that is part of Britain’s Trident nuclear deterrent. He was awarded an OBE in 2009.
This is a pretty good boondoggle, but this was one that had official sanction from higher-ups who knew what was going on; the story says that over 50 officers have done something similar. Some of the better stories I've heard have come from guys who pulled on over on their chain of command and got the sweetest of deals paid for without taking any leave. (One of our riders on the
Topeka '92-'93 Westpac ended up staying in Phukett for several weeks after he left the boat and met us on the beach when we showed up for a liberty call; he claimed he paid for the trip, but I wasn't buying it.) My best boondoggle was convincing CENTCOM to send me and my relief as the Individual Augmentee J5 Coalition Financial Officer to Warsaw for a week to work with the Poles, but I actually got a lot of work done on that trip.
What's the best boondoggle you ever got?
Read the complete post at http://bubbleheads.blogspot.com/2013/12/boondoggle.html
Posted
Dec 01 2013, 02:52 PM
by
The Stupid Shall Be Punished