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Of course, the U.S. troops in question are Air Force, their standard is something like a Marriot, with a better restaurant and spa.

Not these days. We do tent cities and temorary structures.

We do believe in good chow halls, though.

Re: Air Force Dorm Life.

I was privileged, I now realize, to have been ordered to hear the Command Sergeant Major of the Army speak to we peons and proles back in the early 80s, in Korea. (This was not the black Command Sergeant Major of the Army that got caught date-raping his pregnant Staff Sergeant subordinate, but one or two before that one.) After the standard ooh-rah talk, The Sergeant Major (”SMaj”, pronounced “smadge”, pay grade E-9 & maxxed out) invited questions. He may have later regretted allowing questions.

Army Staff Sergeant #1 (E-6) stood and asked why the Air Force always got better quarters and less crowded conditions, and the SMaj of all SMajs harrumphed and hemmed and hawed and regretted that he was not able to comment properly on generalities, but would need more specifics. Army Staff Sergeant #2 then stood and asked why he had specifically come from a small, mixed detachment (near Frisco, I believe) and had been billeted with specific Airmen who had recieved, without asking, a specific subsidy for substandard housing. Staff Sergeant #2 wondered why he had not received a similar subsidy.

The SMaj of all SMajs harrumphed and hemmed and hawed again and regretted that he was not able to comment properly on this specific situation in generalities, without more information available. The Staff Sergeant involved offered more details, but, time constraints being what they were, the SMaj had to go on to other (planted?) questions, and was unable to fully unravel the apparent mix-up.

I did two hitches in the Reagan Army, and I’ve worked under some damn fine First Sergeants, but I never met a SMaj that wasn’t a despicable weasel.

My brother was an EM in an AF civil engineering unit. They built tent cities on Anderson AFB, Guam, in the early seventies, but if the AF is going any place to stay, they believe in keeping up morale. I’ve stayed in former AF enlisted billets on Shemya (Eareckson AS), as a contractor. Not half bad.