Classified Material

 At some point in my military years, I got 'drafted' into a classified document search.  There were three of us in this 'search-team'.  

So, here's the odd thing....there were three lost documents, based on the original audit.  None of the three of us....worked in this 'vault' or had any relationship to the crew which were working there.  

So we walked in and immediately realized the scope of the mess.  This was a vault with around twenty-five file cabinets.  To go through each drawer....searching for the documents or the message lost....among what was literally thousands and thousands of documents or messages?  

I immediately asked for destruction records.  Looking at the age and description of two of the documents....I knew they had replacement documents arrive in the past year.  It took 15 minutes to find the first document (already destroyed) and five more minutes to find the second destroyed document.  

These people had simply failed to grasp the destruction records.  

The third one?  It had fallen in some drawer and was underneath several folders....but it would take the rest of the day to settle upon this finding.

Nothing was lost.  

Classified documents don't get lost....unless you remove them from a vaulted area or safe.  

So I look at the White House 'mess' and it's the reality that people want these documents in open areas....which aren't really treated as vaults or secure.  

Someone will go and ask for such-and-such....to read.....but the reality is....they pretend to read it and discuss it, when all they did was read the sixty-line initial summary.  The thirty-odd page real report?  Ninety percent of folks will just skip that because of the dry material.