The Accountability Of Personnel That Cost Lives

The definition of accountability is “to account for one’s actions”, it can also mean “the condition of being accountable or responsible. ” In the military, this means being where you’re supposed to be in the correct uniform, at the correct time, or checking in when by the time specified making it vital to a properly functional and operational military. Accountability doesn’t just apply to personnel or time keeping it also applies to keep track of personally identifiable information, also known as PII, and keeping track of the gear or weaponry assigned. Personnel accountability means knowing where a person is at all times, especially if a recall or even a disaster occurs.

By knowing where all personnel are located allows for an NCO or officer to have personnel on standby and ready to go and makes it easier to track them down. If a person can’t be contacted for accountability the worst starts being assumed like the person is dead in a ditch somewhere or has gone AWOL, or absent without leave. For example, “On Aug. 30, 1988, Marines were conducting night maneuver training near Twentynine Palms, Calif. Rother, a 19-year-old, was transported from Camp Lejeune to participate in the exercise. Most of the Marines were dropped off in the Mojave Desert in groups to direct convoys, but Rother was dropped off alone. Two days later Rother was reported missing. His noncommissioned officers and fellow Marines had not accounted for him during the exercise. Rother’s remains were found nearly three months later just two miles from Twentynine Palms. ” Another real-life example of not having the accountability of personnel that cost lives is Bowe Bergdahl’s desertion of his post. His desertion caused his unit to be unaccountable of his whereabouts, which caused a search for him to be conducted. In the course of this search six United States soldiers were killed and another eight soldiers at a base that was supposed to be closed, but was delayed due to resources being diverted to find Bergdahl. If Bergdahl hadn’t of deserted his post, then those fourteen soldiers would still be alive. Responsibility being closely related to accountability means that if a person can’t be trusted to be accountable, then it will be hard to trust that same person to be responsible. For example, if a soldier that’s accountable for a weapon loses that weapon, then that soldier’s chain of command will be less likely to trust that soldier to be responsible with another weapon, especially if the weapon isn’t found. If the weapon isn’t found then the soldier is required to pay for the lost weapon and if it is found then the soldier is directly responsible for any damages, injuries, or deaths caused by the weapon since he couldn’t keep accountability of it.

Accountability also goes hand in hand with safety of personnel and safety in the workplace. In the workplace, being aware of the surroundings and accountable of the whereabouts of all hazardous materials, tools, or gear can save a person’s life from a life-threatening / fatal wound or a grievous injury. Not being cognizant of the whereabouts of these items and accountable of a person’s whereabouts within the workplace puts everyone in danger. For example, a mechanic is working on a Humvee in the bay and has tools scattered around the vehicle. Another mechanic could just be passing by to get to another location within the bay and trip over these scattered tools. Most people would be fine and recover quickly after tripping, but this second mechanic whacks their head on the Humvee as they trip causing them to completely fall to the ground and possibly injure themselves more. The mechanic is now accountable for leaving the tools scattered around on the floor and injuring a coworker with the severity of the injuries being unknown. The first mechanic, although unknowing, put his coworker’s life and his own at risk by leaving the tools out instead of putting them in a toolbox. He put their lives at risk because the injured mechanic could have fallen wrong and cracked his head on the floor or broken his neck and the same could have happened to the mechanic working on the Humvee.

Although it doesn’t save lives in the traditional sense, having the accountability of PII does save lives. There are three distinct ways that someone could technically lose their life by not maintaining the accountability of their PII. The simplest one is losing a debit or credit card and someone picks it up and starts using it. The most this will do is drain the account attached to the debit and run up the credit card, probably ruining the person’s credit. The second way is stealing a person’s identity through use of that person’s PII. The identity thief will ruin the life of the person the identity belongs to because anything they do with that identity won’t be linked to them. The third and probably rarest way is to have some declared dead by using PII. This method involves using a person’s PII to basically create a death certificate declaring that person dead. This ruins that person’s life because it’s extremely hard to prove that they’re who they say they are and not somebody trying to steal a dead person’s identity.