In fairness, the taxpayers were never going to be on the hook for a penny of that. Individual soldiers are required to get the government travel card and put travel expenses on it, but the government is only going to pay reimbursable expenses which have to be declared and justified.
I can imagine this joker going to the little old lady in tennis shoes who reimburses charges.
General: "I need you to reimburse this expense."
LOLITS: "What expense?"
General: "This $3,000 one from the Candy Bar in Seoul."
LOLITS: "Really? What is the Candy Bar?"
General: "It's a strip club where Korean girls strip down to their skivvies (or less)."
LOLITS: "You got $135/day for meals and incidental expenses, so you can't claim meals there, even if you were stupid enough to eat at a joint with dancing girls in skivvies. You can get lodging reimbursed. Is the Candy Bar, perchance, also a hotel?"
General: "Uh, no."
LOLITS: "Tell you what general, do me a favor and pick up that phone right there and call the IG and take it up with them because if you don't, as soon as you are out of my office, I will."
MSNBC has committed another act of journalism here. This dude will pay the entire $3,000 bill himself and will be fired to boot. It sells newspapers to imply that the taxpayers will be paying for a general's evening at a nudie bar, but that is just not so. Not that the truth matters at all to an American journalist.
Plus, I thought we had done away with standards anyway. As long as the taxpayers did not pay for anything at the Candy Bar, isn't what happened there between the general and the Korean dancing girl?
