They don’t call David Baucom a rear admiral for nothing.
Well, that is, they used to. He’s … not … anymore.
That’s because he — one of the United States Navy’s top supply officers — has been “fired and rebuked for drunkenness and nudity” after he hit the bar hard at a Florida trade conference back in April.
Baucom was formerly the director of Strategy, Policy, Capabilities, and Logistics at U.S. Transportation Command, but was removed when an investigation found that his misbehavior at that event a few months prior — at the National Defense Transportation Association’s Transportation Advisory Board in Ponte Verde, Florida — was far too egregious and lewd to let slide.
Here’s what went down, via USA TODAY:
On April 7, Baucom attended a dinner with about 70 conference attendees and imbibed all or part of at least eight drinks, according to an investigation released by the Navy after inquiries from Navy Times.
At several points in the evening, security camera footage shows Baucom stumbling, at one point hitting his head on a bar stool. At 1:30 a.m., a hotel employee drove Baucom to his room about half a mile away.
While in his room, Baucom took his clothes off, showered and got ready for the next day. He also took prescription medications, which can cause drowsiness and dizziness when mixed with alcohol. Baucom told investigators that he awoke in the night from a deep sleep and thought he was entering a bathroom, but was in fact exiting his room.
Baucom, 56, became so intoxicated that he was unable to stand and had to be brought by a hotel employee back to his room. Later, he was discovered wandering naked through public areas of the hotel, seeking a towel to cover himself, the investigation found.
One of the rear admiral’s associates discovered him, nude, walking poorly in search of his proverbial thick, absorbent cloth, and guided him back to his room.
He told investigators that, when he returned to Illinois from the conference, he checked himself into a rehab facility for drugs and alcohol abuse.
His bosses still weren’t swayed to let him off the hook, however. Instead, they cut him no slack, and offered this:
“We determined that (Rear Adm.) Baucom’s level of intoxication and his public nudity are of such a nature that they dishonored or disgraced him personally and seriously compromised his standing as an officer,” the report read.
Before the Navy gave him the bad news and terminated him, they gave him the option to appeal his nonjudicial punishment.