The Use of Government-Owned Vehicles for the Comfort or Health and Welfare of Personnel in Deployed or Remote Locations

摘要

My interest in the topic of government-owned vehicles (GOVs) began at Gwangju Air Base, Republic of Korea. It was around 2300 hours of my first night in country, when my commander woke me up from a jet-lagged stupor. He wanted to know if it was "legal" to transport a bus full of Airmen in the morning to the base exchange at Kunsan Air Base to replenish toiletry and clothing items destroyed during some flooding in our "tent city." He also thought the Airmen needed to recharge their batteries at Kunsan's new gym and its other morale, welfare and recreational (MWR) facilities. I said, "Yes," and spent the rest of my deployment justifying the commander's decision to much of the Peninsula.rnThis article familiarizes judge advocates (JAs) with the proper use of GOVs for "life support" activities in a deployed or remote location. Life support activities, in the context of this discussion, consist of GOV transportation to those places that are "required for the comfort or health and welfare of the member." Life support activities include things such as the chaplain's program, inter-installation athletic competitions, the base exchange/commissary, and MWR programs under certain circumstances. The concepts discussed will help commanders improve mission performance by ensuring that their personnel obtain lawful transportation to morale enhancing life support activities. Of course, the basic rules and principles governing the use of GOVs are the same whether you are located at a large continental United States (CONUS) installation or at a small outpost in Iraq. The application of those rules to a particular set of facts and circumstances at a deployed or remote location, however, can often lead to more permissive results. A "no" at Fort Hood might be a "yes" at Camp Victory. Moreover, several provisions within the rules specifically provide for uses of GOVs in a deployed or remote location that are not available at an adequately serviced CONUS installation.