In just five years, U.S. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus has traveled more than 930,000 miles, costing taxpayers more than $4.7 million, the Associated Press reported Tuesday.
As of July 2014, the former Mississippi governor has taken at least 40 trips outside of the country, in which he met with officials, sailors and soldiers in more than 100 countries, data obtained by the AP showed.
The excessive travel is a necessary part of his job, though, claims Mabus - essential to furthering U.S. and Navy interests around the world. Face-to-face negotiations are simply more effective, especially when discussing certain issues such as basing ships in particular cities.
"You could do that in a phone call, I guess. You could send them a note," Mabus told the AP. "I don't think they take it nearly as seriously if you're not sitting across the table from them."
"I think the return on investment for my travel has been phenomenal," he added.
As of July, Mabus had traveled to 107 countries, including visits to Naval ports in Singapore, Bahrain, Italy, Japan and Africa. Also on his travel list are Greenland, Iceland and Norway, where Mabus took a snowmobile safari on the island of Svalbard, reported the AP.
However, the most-visited country, as perhaps expected, was Afghanistan, with 12 stops, followed by Spain, which he visited nine times, largely to oversee plans to base four U.S. naval destroyers there as part of the new anti-missile shield.
But a number of tiny island nations and landlocked countries with little Navy or Marine presence have also been visited, including Kiribati, Sao Tome, Palau, Micronesia and Tonga.
Mabus is seemingly quite proud of his travel, too.
"He even has a mileage ticker on his Navy website, showing he has traveled 932,129 miles as of this week," noted the AP.
After receiving a complaint about his travel, the inspector general conducted an investigation and cleared Mabus of any wrongdoing, but such a travel record sharply contrasts with that of Army Secretary John McHugh. McHugh took less than half of the trips that Mabus did over the same time frame, and did so at less than half the cost.
