Posted on 05/10/2008 12:05:11 PM PDT by Dawnsblood
The U.S. Army said Friday it will immediately repair barracks at eight facilities in the wake of inspection at bases worldwide.
The inspections were done the last week of April and covered nearly 150,000 barracks rooms. They found that 45 repairs needed priority attention, including new heating and cooling equipment, repainting, mold removal and other work.
Army Secretary Pete Geren has said that $248 million in emergency funds has been appropriated to fix problems found during the inspections. The Army on Friday identified eight installations that will get priority attention: Fort Polk, La.; Fort Gordon, Ga.; Fort Bragg, N.C.; Fort Stewart, Ga.; Fort Lewis, Wash.; the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in New York; Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, and Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
I’m familiar with some of those problems. Somebody has really dropped the ball on this and needs to be fired. Then there’s the other part, soldiers should be responsible for keeping their quarters maintained and repaired regardless how old the building is.
During the 60s on our shore bases, we were in WW2 barracks (Navy) and just about every base I was at, everything not only had to work but shine like the new morning sun, no excuses.
Conditions at some of the barracks I’ve seen are a disgrace, they look like some run down housing project in the slums. No excuse for lights being out or not working, windows broken and not replaced, doors off the hinges and generally shabby, unsafe and unhealthy conditions. Disgusting. I’ve seen that myself. Made me ashamed with the lack of discipline and pride.
In today’s PC world, it seems like everyone is afraid to MAKE folks take responsibility for themselves. The soldiers on this forum will know what I’m talking about if they have been to any of the posts lately.
It would never occur to most of today’s armed forces to repair a facility...that’s what base maintenance is for. Funds for housing go to new buildings, no renovating or maintaining low profile transient facilities, and most of this only comes to light when forces deploy and return and reservists are called up, as during peacetime many simply live off base.
My understanding is that these days all repairs must be done by civilian contractors. To use GI’s such as SeaBees would be competing with local contactors. I don’t think that is tolerated.
“Then there’s the other part, soldiers should be responsible for keeping their quarters maintained and repaired regardless how old the building is.”
Clean yes, but how are soldiers to perform repairs? Do they have AC systems or new doors issued to them?
Every enlisted Army barracks I’ve seen has been pathetic. Not from abuse or lack of cleaning. Pathetic from the general condition of the buildings and their age. I’ve seen buildings condemned by the Air Force re-utilized as-is by the Army.
The Army does not place a priority on the living quarters of their soldiers.
“My understanding is that these days all repairs must be done by civilian contractors. To use GI’s such as SeaBees would be competing with local contactors. I don’t think that is tolerated.”
Congress passed a law quite some time ago that any job that can be done by a civilian must be done by a civilian.
Not only is it not tolerated, there are no funds, and the commander who let his men chip lead paint or work around anything that might have asbestos or other hazmat would be in deep Kimchi.
The US military is structured to make maximum use of contractors, partly so they can concentrate on warfighting, but also to spread the gravy around.
The military is first and foremost a bureaucracy. The iron rule of bureaucracies is to accumulate power and disperse responsibility.
I was called back into the Army in 1961 when POTUS Kennedy pushed the panic button on the Berlin Wall. I reported to Fort Lewis, the North Fort. WW II baracks in terrible condition. The furnace spewed soot all over the barracks.
Blew black out the nose continuously. They probably still stand.
I’m from your time in the Navy. You are exactly correct.
Right now the Navy needs to take a look at the Dam Neck, Virginia base schools.
Respiratory infections are eating up the sailors, the buildings are seldom repaired and the sailors are buying their own cleaning supplies.
In addition there’s no sick call. A sailor has to call a civilian to make an appointment for it to be determine if he needs to be seen by a nurse or a doctor. This information was correct as of about seven months ago. I doubt if the place has changed much.
I’ve been retired over 20 years now - but - mold? Way back when we had a self help shop on base, and the unit took care of a lot of repairs. We took care of drywall, paint, most plumbing and lighting and other routine maintenance ourselves. I always had a few extra duty people who “volunteered” their time instead of an Article 15.
I don't know about maintaining housing, but construction work is often done by engineer or sea bee units from the reserve forces. It's good training.
At the moment though, the active forces are very "tooth" heavy and don't have enough slots, the levels are Congressionally mandated, to provide for much in the way of support units, and those are mostly deployed or training for their next deployment. The "Tail" is concentrated in the reserve, especially in the Army and Navy, who are the ones living in that substandard housing.
As someone else pointed out, those barracks are either transient, or rarely used facilities. Normally there would be no soldiers living there for long enough to do the repair work themselves.
I hear you concerning contractors and the “system”, I understand that. I’m speaking of basic maintenance, light bulb changing (put in a request for pete’s sake!), security lights repaired, broken windows replaced, doors, etc, WHERE’S THE LEADERSHIP?? GET ‘R DONE men!
New barracks is another ball game, not talking about new buildings, talking about keeping the old stuff livable, SAFE and halfway healthy, latrines functioning, CLEAN quarters, it doesn’t have to be new to be clean.
And too, we’re not talking about everyone, not all units were that way but there are some deplorable conditions on some of these bases but some of these things are controllable by the soldiers themselves, I’m not a crusader on a mission, I was being shown these things by some soldiers over the past few years, we were discussing problems (causes and effects) and how to solve them.
None of our barracks has air conditioning. That's what the windows are for.
I’ve seen buildings condemned by the Air Force re-utilized as-is by the Army.
Uh well, that's the Air Force. I haven't seen such barracks, but the USAF has extremely high living standards. Those of us in the Army (and even some in the Air Force itself), call airmen Civilians in Uniform. When I was in Pensacola and lived in Navy barracks for 5 months - they were basically hotel rooms - the Air Force would have considered it substandard living conditions, if it wasn't for the big screen TV in their CQ.
THAT is the major reason why I didn't join the Chair Force. The Army is exactly the right branch for me. Although the USAF seems to have all the good-looking females :-)
Uh..I sure wish I could live off-base. I fantasize about that. The unit I am with - you can live off-base, but you have to pay 100%. You an unauthorized to live off-base unless there is no room on-base, and there is room. It does save money. The Army would have to pay me around $2500 a month extra in BAH to live off-base here.
But there is also the thing that Army has a very limited budget - only $100 billion a year. Plus, we exist to fight our nation's wars, and not to lead comfortable lives.
Because you don't like air conditioning?
Actually, I don’t!
Housing wasn’t always the best, but the Army did, overall, a pretty good job when I served.
I ETS’d in 95 to go to college, and went back in the Army in ‘97 having took all I could take of modern “liberals”. Anyway, I noticed a distinct downturn in the level of policing up litter on various bases.
I attribute this in some part because congress cut back defense spending so drastically and ill-advisedly in the late 80s and early 90s. (Because the “cold war” was over, ha ha)
Whole swaths of tasks formerly performed by soldiers, up to and including flag detail, were left wanting because their weren’t enough troops! As deployments and tasking increased 2 or 3 fold, civilian contractors were brought in at considerable expense for all kinds of stuff.
Incidentally, this is the impetus behind the lefties abhorrence of firms like Halliburton and others. The lefties don’t have a clue is the sad part - very few civilian firms have the personnel, experience and funding to operate in a combat zone. KBR, Dyncorps, and Halliburton are just about the only ones, period. Ironically the civilian contractors do the same job that soldiers once did, but at far higher costs. So blame congress.
For my part, the barracks weren’t always the greatest but the Army really did address “quality of life” issues for single and married soldiers with the best they had. Commanders and NCOs did a good job - what’s happening now is likely an issue of manpower - if barracks are left unattended and unoccupied because of deployments then that is part of the problem.
I *think* the North Fort wooden WWII barracks are gone, now.
They were extant in 1990 or thereabouts however, because I attended NCO school there, and lived in them. They were in reasonable condition considering their age and “temporary” 5 year status when built.
White rocks everywhere, and those white stripes a few feet up on the doug firs, which I never quite got the purpose for that.
“THAT is the major reason why I didn’t join the Chair Force. The Army is exactly the right branch for me. Although the USAF seems to have all the good-looking females :-)”
The main reason I joined the Air Force was I love airplanes and wanted some technical training. Also it wasn’t the Army. My two brothers were squids so I couldn’t go there. And of course the good looking babes were in the Air Force, not too many in my day.
I don’t mean to start the Army / Air Force war again (we all know the Army would lose), just stating my personal observations that the Army places a LOT less emphasis on the living conditions for its troops. Of course the Navy and Air Force have better technical training IMO so they have to work harder to keep the people they’ve put a year or two of school into.
Some might argue that the Air Force is an elitist organization because of the simple fact that you people get EXTRA MONEY if you are ever temporarily assigned to an Army post.
And don't even get me started on the Air Force's Department of Global Warming.
Talk about a complete waste of taxpayer dollars:
"William Anderson, an assistant secretary of the Air Force, said the project aimed to calculate the overall carbon footprint of the world's energy sources, rather than merely measure their direct emissions."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/apr/28/clima...ienceofclimatechange
This is great news! We need more Air Force expenses like this one being proposed! We also need a much larger standing government to help us combat global warming, cooling, air conditioning and mosquitoes!
Only with the divine guidance of government can any of the earth's problems be solved!
I hope that our Congress will see that this is a worthwhile project and fund it adequately! How much is enough to save the planet?
/S
All joking aside the fault lies with Congress. To some extent it also falls on senior leadership. Base commanders have been faced with buying bullets or light bulbs. IMO its the politicization of the war thats led to budget cuts.
Ability to disassemble weapons of different armies, Marksmanship, land navigation, survival training, jump school, communications, hmmmmm..... foreign relations, how to make stuff blow up using household items.... first aid, how to scrounge rides with boats above and below sea level, planes and ox carts, currency exchange , .... just a plethora of useful stuff and college money afterwards.
I think we all find our niche. I bust balls with the best of them, but we're really on the same team and I've always felt better when I needed something blown up I wouldn't have to do it myself.... but could just use the radio and light something up, then a magic angel would make the bad thing go away with a boom or a bunch of booms.
Oh housing, what's that? Most of the time it was inside, air temp tended to be colder than the outside and the head was usually cleaner than anything I could find in the public restrooms.
Now as far as who has the hottest women...... the Navy has some babes but the Air Force nurses made me wish for a non-lethal wound that would require a very long recovery. At least the ones in Wilford Hall from what I could see when visiting friends
. 
Here's something to raise the morale for the troops, who needs housing.
There are still WWI barracks on North Fort Lewis. They house Reserve units going through mobilization and ROTC Cadets during the summer.
The barracks I lived in as an ROTC cadet in 1985 is still standing, and still in use. Not bad for a “five year” building.
Regards,
“Here’s something to raise the morale for the troops, who needs housing.”
She does, and I got plenty of room. Especially after the wife sees this post. :)
We are all on the same team. My favorite military joke goes like this.
Theres a war on and a young marine is sitting in a foxhole with bullets whizzing overhead and bombs bursting all around. He says “I love how it sucks here!”
The army guy is in a similar hole and just says “it sucks here”.
The navy guy looks out his porthole and says “it sucks over there”.
The air force guy leans back in his recliner and screams at the TV “WHAT no cable!? that sucks!
Even transient barracks have someone in charge and responsible, but now that I have cooled off and put it in context I have to state that finding only 45 repairs needed in their search isn’t bad at all. How much of the mold was found in building that had been shut down and empty for a period of time? Heating and air conditioning? Every year when the A/C units in my apartment complex are checked several are found to be in need of repair or replacement - the same when the heating season starts. It could be no more than the normal failure rate.
By now I should know enough not to be quick to take MSM news reports at face value. Remember the stink they raised about the “deplorable” conditions at Walter Reed? It turned out to be at a motel recently leased by the hospital to provide outpatient quarters. People were allowed to move in before repairs were completed.
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