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Well, folks, once again the Pentagon is failing audits and losing gear (shocking, I know) so we’re about to take a look into the Pentagon’s piggy bank – or rather, the gaping, comically large holes that have appeared in it lately. We all make mistakes; you might forget to pay a parking ticket, the US military… their "oopsies" tend to come with a few more zeroes attached.
Between May 2020 and May 2025, a period marked by global pandemics, shifting geopolitical landscapes, and the persistent question of "where did I leave my car keys/multi billion-dollar weapons system?", the Department of Defense has managed some truly spectacular financial flubs. We've narrowed it down to a few expensive, eyebrow-raising, and occasionally baffling ways taxpayer dollars have gone into the drink. including, as per popular demand (or perhaps a well-placed anonymous tip from a disgruntled naval aviator), the very recent, very splashy losses of two of the Navy’s finest flying machines in 2025.
The Case of the Wandering Warplanes (and Their Elusive Bits and Bobs) - Cost: Hundreds of Millions and Rising
Our first category of calamitous cash combustion involves the wild blue yonder, where some of America's priciest airborne assets have developed an unfortunate habit of either disappearing, going for unplanned swims, or having their crucial components play hide-and-seek on a global scale.
The F-35 Spare Parts Scavenger Hunt - Tens of Millions
The F-35 Lightning II. It's stealthy. It's powerful. It's… eye-wateringly expensive. And apparently, so are its bits and pieces, especially when you can't find them. In 2023, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Washington's official hoarders, revealed a rather embarrassing tidbit: a government contractor had managed to "misplace" (a term doing some heavy lifting here) some two million spare parts for the F-35 since 2018, collectively valued in the tens of millions of dollars.
Making matters worse, the Department of Defense reportedly only followed up on about 20,000 of these UA components. Military officials admitted they didn't even have a clear count of how many F-35 spare parts existed in total, scattered as they were across various contractor warehouses worldwide. It’s like a cosmic game of sock-matching, but with highly sensitive, incredibly expensive aircraft components. Imagine trying to get your F-35 airborne but having to ground it because "someone, somewhere, has the left phalange, and we're pretty sure it's not in the couch cushions this time." The ongoing sustainment costs for the F-35 program are already astronomical; not knowing where your multimillion-dollar spare parts are is just adding insult to fiscal injury.
The Navy's Very Bad Year for Flying Objects - Approximately $137 Million Splashed, Slipped, or Smacked
The San Diego Splash-Down (February 2025) - First up, we have the unfortunate demise of an EA-18G Growler. For those not in the know, the Growler is an electronic warfare aircraft, designed to jam enemy radar and communications – a sort of flying cone of silence for hostile air defenses. In February 2025, one of these sophisticated machines, valued at a cool $67 million, decided to take an unscheduled dip into San Diego Bay. Thankfully, the crew ejected safely, presumably with a fantastic story to tell. Reports indicated this was the second Growler airframe lost in about six months, suggesting these birds might be developing a taste for seawater.
The Red Sea Slip 'n Slide (April 2025) - Not to be outdone, just a couple of months later in April 2025, an F/A-18E Super Hornet, the Navy’s workhorse fighter jet, executed a flawless impression of a bar of soap in a bathtub. While being towed on the deck of the USS Harry S. Truman in the Red Sea, the aircraft reportedly just… slid off. Kerplunk. Another approximately $70 million asset is on its way to Davy Jones' locker. Again, thankfully, no one was injured, apart from perhaps the ego of the individual who last set the parking brake.
These incidents, while thankfully not resulting in loss of life for the air crews, highlight the inherent risks and staggering costs when things go wrong with high-performance military hardware. Each crash or loss isn't just a financial write-off; it's a complex investigation, a disruption to operations, and a reminder that even the most advanced technology is not immune to a bad day. For the Navy those bad days seemingly came in expensive pairs.
The Not-So-Super Trooper Goggles - IVAS and the Quest for Robocop That Gave Soldiers Headaches) - Cost: Billions Committed, Much TBD, Countless Excedrin
Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, and behold the Army's Integrated Visual Augmentation System, or IVAS! Imagine a soldier, not just any soldier, but a future soldier, equipped with goggles straight out of a sci-fi blockbuster. These aren't your grandpa's night-vision specs; we're talking cutting-edge, see-through-walls (almost), real-time battlefield data, thermal imaging, target acquisition, and probably a built-in coffee maker (okay, maybe not the coffee maker, but one can dream). Microsoft was awarded a contract that could be worth up to a staggering $21.88 billion over 10 years to make this futuristic vision a reality. The goal? To give American soldiers an unparalleled advantage on the battlefield. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, as it turns out, strapping a complex computer display directly to a soldier's face while they're expected to run, jump, and engage in activities slightly more stressful than your average PowerPoint presentation comes with a few… ergonomic challenges. Starting around 2021 and continuing through the following years, reports began to surface from soldier testing that were, shall we say, less than glowing. Instead of feeling like Master Chief from Halo, many soldiers reported feeling something closer to "that person on the rollercoaster who really regrets their lunch choices."
Complaints included nausea, headaches, and eyestrain. Turns out, having a heads-up display project information directly onto your retinas while you’re trying to navigate uneven terrain can be a bit disorienting. Who knew? Early versions were described as somewhat cumbersome, potentially hindering a soldier's ability to, for example, aim their rifle effectively or not get snagged on every passing doorway. Not ideal when you’re trying to be a sleek, modern fighting machine. The display itself could sometimes be so bright it was visible to others, which, in a combat situation where you're trying not to be a glowing target, is a distinct disadvantage.
The Army, to its credit, didn't just throw in the towel (or the goggles). They’ve been working with Microsoft to iron out the kinks, leading to revised versions like IVAS 1.1 and 1.2. However, the journey has been a costly one. In late 2022 and early 2023, the Army significantly slashed its planned procurement numbers for the initial years and delayed wider fielding. An initial batch of around 5,000 units was accepted in 2022 under a "waiver" – essentially acknowledging they weren't quite up to snuff but were needed for further testing and development. Some of these early models were even reportedly relegated to "training only" status, which is a polite way of saying, "Don't take these into a real fight unless you want a very expensive migraine." It’s the military equivalent of buying the most advanced smart-home system ever devised, only to find it keeps turning your lights on and off at random and occasionally insults your taste in music.
While the final chapter on IVAS is yet to be written, and later versions are showing improvements with soldiers beginning to test the IVAS 1.2 in late 2024, the program's troubled development, significant delays, and the vast sums of money involved highlight the expensive learning curve in military innovation. It's a multi-billion dollar bet that's still trying to find its focus, both literally and figuratively. Here's hoping the future soldiers eventually get their super-goggles, minus the super-headaches.
The Pentagon's Persistent Pocket Problem - Where'd That $10.8 Billion Go? - Cost: Billions in Fraud (and a Never-Ending Audit Quest)
Our final exhibit in this museum of military miscalculations is less about specific items of lost kit and more about a systemic issue that’s arguably even more costly: the Department of Defense’s ongoing, epic struggle with financial accountability and, yes, good old-fashioned fraud.
The GAO, our recurring hero in this tale of fiscal woe, reported in early 2025 that between fiscal years 2017 and 2024, the DoD experienced about $10.8 billion in confirmed fraud. Let that sink in. Ten point-eight billion dollars. That's enough to buy a whole fleet of those Growlers the Navy seems to be turning into artificial reefs. And that’s just the confirmed fraud; the GAO soberly notes that "the full extent of fraud affecting DOD is not known but is potentially significant." All this while CIF still charges you for equipment from Vietnam because you bled on it.
For years, the Pentagon has been the only federal agency unable to pass a comprehensive audit. Imagine trying to balance your checkbook, but your checkbook is the size of a small country's GDP, half the receipts are written in invisible ink, and a mischievous gremlin keeps sneaking in and "borrowing" nine-figure sums. That’s the DoD audit experience in a nutshell. While there's been "some progress" (the kind of progress your dentist notes when you've only developed three new cavities instead of six), the department is still wrestling with "significant remaining issues." These aren't just accounting errors; they represent a vulnerability to waste, fraud, and abuse that would make even the most brazen corporate embezzler blush.
The humor here is the sheer, Sisyphean scale of it all. The Pentagon, an organization capable of projecting power across the globe, orchestrating mind-bogglingly complex logistical feats, and developing technology that verges on science fiction, apparently finds double-entry bookkeeping to be its kryptonite. The quest for a "clean audit opinion" has become the DoD's equivalent of the search for the Holy Grail, only with more spreadsheets and fewer knights.
The Real Punchline? We're Paying for It
So, there you have it: three of the most wallet-walloping ways the US military has bid farewell to taxpayer dollars in recent years. Not even touching the nightmare that was the Afghan withdrawal, then to misplacing warplane parts like car keys, and the Navy’s impromptu 2025 submarine conversion program for its jets, to a financial system that sometimes feels more like a sieve than a vault, it’s been an expensive half-decade.
While the dedication and bravery of the service members are never in question, the stewardship of the immense resources allocated to national defense certainly raises an eyebrow, a chuckle, and occasionally, a despairing groan. Here's hoping the next five years see an unlikely but necessary return to fiscal accountability, because at the end of the day, it’s our money funding those high-flying, deep-diving, occasionally disappearing assets. And we’d really like them to stick around.
