Posted on 10/29/2001 4:37:20 AM PST by Constitution Day
Military families endure sorry housing to serve country
By BILL BASKERVILL, Associated Press Writer
October 27, 2001 10:13 am
Many U.S. military families living in housing provided by the armed services have a beef with their landlord. Long-neglected upkeep is a nagging, daily aggravation -- and policymakers and even commanders say it also lowers morale and hurts re-enlistment.
-- At Fort Story in Virginia, termite damage went unattended so long at the home of the top enlisted man, Sgt. Maj. Jim Moors, that the house was condemned. Moors said he just hoped to provide his wife with "a nice set of quarters before we retire" after 30 years in the Army. All other housing on the post is substandard, the service acknowledges.
-- Ungrounded wiring, found throughout New Mexico's Kirtland Air Force Base, was blamed when an airman's television "blew up," housing director Elaina Day said. Antiquated electrical systems at many bases increase the chance of fire and shock.
-- At Fort Bragg, N.C., Lucy Thomas and her neighbor, Sharon Carr, both soldiers' wives, are fed up with plumbing problems. Thomas' ceiling has collapsed three times because of leaking pipes. "I've had three floods," she said. The toilet in Carr's cramped townhouse overflowed so much that it ruined three carpets. Sewage and toilet tissue routinely percolate to the surface in the front yard, she said.
"I've lived in public housing and this is worse," Carr said. "It's like we are nobody."
Across the nation's military installations, the complaints are the same. Ceilings sag and floors buckle. Lead-based paint crumbles where soldiers' children play, and wallboard paste laced with asbestos lies exposed. Patched roofs and neglected pipes leak. Septic systems overflow.
"Inadequate" is the term applied by the services themselves to two-thirds of the 300,000 family homes owned or leased by the United States military worldwide. That means they are too small or have major problems with plumbing, electrical systems, air conditioning, termites, rot or mold.
Many homes, officials say, simply need to be demolished.
Retired Maj. Gen. Ray L. Smith, commander of the Marine Corps' Camp Lejeune, N.C., through July 1999, called himself the region's "biggest slumlord" because of decaying, 50-year-old base housing.
"I could make people live in my slum," he says, "but didn't have the power to fix them up."
Military brass worry about the effect that today's poor housing -- a legacy of 200 years of neglect -- could have on war-fighting ability as a second generation of professional soldiers decide if they should remain in the service.
"It has a direct relationship to recruitment and retention," said Raymond F. Dubois, deputy undersecretary of defense for installations and environment.
President Bush and Congress have spelled out plans to improve troops' housing, good news for the services which reported in September that recruitment remains a major challenge, even though they met goals for the past two years. Re-enlistment rates dropped during the 1990s.
"It's morally wrong to ask people who are risking their lives for the country to live in housing that the rest of us would be embarrassed to call home," said Rep. Chet Edwards, a member of the House Appropriations military construction subcommittee.
Congress appropriated $890 million this year to replace and renovate 6,800 family homes worldwide. Bush, who wants the services to eliminate substandard housing by 2008, two years ahead of the services' schedule, proposed spending $1.1 billion next year to construct or improve 6,300 family homes and to support private development of an additional 28,000.
Last month's terrorist attacks and the new focus on fighting terrorism will not curtail efforts to improve family housing, Edwards said.
"To the contrary, the events of Sept. 11 ... have refocused the American people on the need for a strong national defense," Edwards said. "That means making sure that our men and women in uniform have all the resources and training they need to carry out their mission, and it means taking care of the human side of national defense as well."
This year's allocation averages to $131,000 per home, which military officials say is comparable to the cost of a similar civilian home. A new townhouse at Fort Carson, Colo., for example, has wall-to-wall carpeting, ceiling fans, a bay window in a large kitchen, a garage, and an underground lawn sprinkler system.
Sen. John Warner, ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said there is broad consensus in Congress to get the problem fixed. "The budgets thus far are on target for correction by 2008," he said.
Rep. Edward L. Schrock, R-Va., recently made a whirlwind tour of 23 military bases with three other members of the House Armed Services Committee. He agreed that Congress is committed to fixing the problem.
The longterm solution is privatization, the Pentagon hopes. In an experiment at Fort Carson, the Army has turned over all family housing to a private developer.
Blending privatization and military construction is expected to cut by two-thirds the projected time and cost of rebuilding housing -- up to 30 years and $30 billion, if done by the military alone.
For at least 20 years, funding hasn't kept pace with even basic maintenance needs, much less construction requirements, said retired Brig. Gen. Robert L. Herndon, former chief of Army housing. Clearing the maintenance backlog alone will cost $16 billion to $30 billion -- "a huge spread because no one really knows how big the figure is," he said.
Associated Press reporters heard stories of neglected upkeep or saw blighted housing on visits to 15 American military bases in the United States and overseas. More than 50 service members and their families gave specific examples of the housing inadequacies broadly reported by the services and the General Accounting Office. AP also talked to base commanders, military housing officials and civilian experts.
Sorry military housing is almost as old as the nation itself.
Soldiers were quartered in stables and shanties at frontier posts in the West, Army Corps of Engineers historian William C. Baldwin wrote in a history of Army housing. In 1870, the surgeon general reported that the United States had the "worst-housed Army in the world." In 1924, national magazines published articles titled "Our Homeless Army" and "Army Housing: A National Disgrace."
Amid the nationwide housing shortage after World War II, "rather than be separated from their families ... many of the service personnel have accepted disgraceful living conditions in shacks, trailer camps and overcrowded buildings," the secretary of defense reported at the time.
Thousands of new homes were built in the 1950s and early '60s, but the shortage of family housing persisted. Those same houses are the ones now falling apart as the pressure for more and better housing increases.
Today, 740,000, or 53 percent, of America's 1,394,000 active-duty military personnel are married -- and three-fourths of those have children. An additional 88,000, or 6 percent, are single parents.
"When there is a procurement program pending for aircraft carriers, Air Force jets or Army tanks, there is a legion of lobbyists from all over the country fighting for those programs," said Rep. Edwards, a Texas Democrat. "There are few lobbyists fighting for better houses" for military families.
A tour of Camp Lejeune underlines that reality.
Staff Sgt. David Murray, his wife and three children live in the base's Watkins Village, an eyesore built in the 1970s. Murray is a 10-year Marine veteran who had planned to make the corps a career. Does he still?
"No, not if I have anything to do with it!" said his wife, Katie. "I'm tired of living in a house that no matter what I do, I hate it."
"My way of making the most of it is to clean like a madwoman all the time," she said. But cleaning the walls is frustrating. She dampened a cloth and demonstrated: The paint came off with a light swipe.
"When the kids take baths, water leaks downstairs and pours out of the heating vent," she said. Part of the nightly bath ritual is to put a towel on the floor below, where the water leaks from holes in the side of the bathtub.
"When the wife says, 'I'm outta here, I'm not living like this,' then we lose the Marine, too," said Col. Tom Phillips, assistant chief of staff for installations and environment at Camp Lejeune.
Despite poor quality, base housing is in demand, with waiting lists up to two years at some installations. That's because base housing and utilities are provided free of charge.
Service members who live off base -- about 65 percent of the force -- receive a housing allowance, varying by rank, but must supplement it from their pockets. They typically pay 20 percent of housing expenses, studies by the services show.
That could add up to about $2,000 out of pocket annually for a staff sergeant with eight years in the Army and a base pay of $24,552 a year, according to the GAO. Officials hope increased housing allowances approved by Congress will eliminate out-of-pocket expenses by 2005.
Like family housing, many barracks occupied by single troops are considered substandard. The Pentagon has set new standards calling for greater privacy and space for soldiers, including eliminating barracks with a central latrine. Bush's proposed budget contains $1.2 billion to build or update barracks.
Fort Stewart, Ga., rates 75 percent of its family housing as poor, and 16 percent as worse than poor.
Geoffrey Armbruster, who drives a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, lives with his wife Patricia and their four children in a "really bad" two-bedroom townhouse in Fort Stewart's Hallwood Homes, built in 1957.
"The air conditioner has failed eight times. The kitchen sink gets stopped up and you can't get anything down it. We keep plunging and plunging and plunging," Patricia Armbruster said.
The Hallwood apartments also have leaky roofs and windows and bursting pipes.
"We maintain them, but they're old, they're falling apart," said post housing director Charlie Bunting.
Lead paint was banned for residential use in 1978. But most military houses built before then have it, like many private homes. Even when paint has been covered with nontoxic paints, cracking and peeling are common and an invitation for children to put paint chips in their mouths.
Asbestos is in wallboard paste and in floor tile glue in many homes, base housing officials said. When major work is done on walls, ceilings or floors, workers wear respirators and hang signs warning: "Danger. Asbestos. Cancer and Lung Disease Hazard."
Military housing officials said they knew of no specific reports of lead- or asbestos-related illness.
At some bases, pest infestation is rampant. At Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, for example, the mice and roaches infesting some homes backing up to woods were bad enough. "And in the past few months we've had a lot of calls for bats," said Terry Mathews, chief of family housing
Troops taking families overseas also face housing woes.
Some soldiers seeing the half-century-old apartment buildings at the U.S. Army post in Heidelberg, Germany, protest, "I wouldn't have brought my family if I'd known," said Dee Spellman, housing manager.
Col. Walter Tomczak, an Air Force navigator, his wife Diann and their two children, live in a 900-square-foot, three-bedroom apartment at Osan Air Base in Korea. Jugs, baskets, toy boxes and dishes are stacked on top of each other.
"I got my staff, but I can't bring them over here for dinner because there is no room," Tomczak said.
Even those with high-profile jobs are not immune to housing problems.
Marine Capt. Charles Gant was flying an FA-18D in combat over Kosovo while dealing with housing problems sickening his son back home at Beaufort Marine Air Station in Beaufort, S.C.
Gant, his wife Jennifer and their two children moved in 1998 into the air station's 1959-vintage Laurel Bay community, where the air conditioning backed up and flooded the carpeting about 10 times, leaving a urine-like smell and causing mildew, they said.
Their son, 18 months old at the time, started having a chronic runny nose and cough, Jennifer Gant said.
"This persisted off and on for the first year we were here until we got the carpet changed and the air conditioning finally fixed," she said.
Quality of housing will be a factor in Gant's decision whether to re-enlist when his tour ends.
And he's not happy. "They should have taken care of my wife," he said, "when I was out of country."
With service members called to duty in the new war on terrorism the issue arises anew, said Phillips, the assistant chief of staff at Camp Lejeune.
"We would certainly hope," he said, "no left-behind spouse would have to call a deployed spouse with a housing problem."
------
EDITOR'S NOTE -- AP reporters Richard Benke in Albuquerque; Sang-Hun Choe in Seoul, South Korea; Melissa Eddy in Frankfurt, Germany; and Jim Hannah in Dayton, Ohio, contributed to this report.
© Copyright 2001. All rights reserved. All material on heraldsun.com is copyrighted by The Durham Herald Company and may not be reproduced or redistributed in any medium except as provided in the site's Terms of Use.
I intend to write my Congressmen and Senators TODAY!
The rumor was that Fort Polk's housing authority had secured some sort of regulatory exemption from the state of Louisiana; otherwise many of the houses would have been condemned and demolished.
Of course, given that our funeral detail firing squads had to go buy ammo at Wal-Mart (lack of battalion funds, you know), this is sadly unsurprising.
I wish I could say that story was unbelievable.
However, I have too many relatives in various branches of service that I have heard similar accounts from.
I was visiting a friend who was married to a Navy Corpsman and who was living in Tarawa Terrace II apartments at Camp Lejeune. I don't know how old these apartments are, but I lived in those apartments after I was born over 30 years ago. Anyway, she showed me the ceiling in the kitchen that had watermarks and a repaired hole in it. My friend told me that there was a water leak, and water started coming through the ceiling. She said they fixed the hole in the ceiling, but not the water leak. She said they'd already fixed the ceiling 2 or 3 times, every time the water came through, but that they had yet to fix the leak.
Housing must have improved considerably since that time.
I retired after 27 years in the military, so I can speak from experience (and with objectivity)
I agree that overseas housing is less than desireable, however; stateside housing isn't even necessary with today's pay standards...read on.
The article states a "base pay" for a "Staff Sergeant with eight years" as about $25,000. THAT is only a partial picture! What the article FAILS to mention is the Housing Allowance, Ration Allowance, Local Allowance, and a couple of others. Those payments boost that salaray considerably (to much closer to $36,000/year).
Military housing residents do not pay for utilities or appliances (those airconditioners, refridgerators, ranges, etc.) Nor do they pay taxes on the allowances in excess of base pay!
Interestingly, the mention of roaches and mice in Ohio just may indicate a bit of lack of maintenance and upkeep on the facilities? I have seen this before...shoddy personal care of the premesis, since there is no cost and no accrument of tangible note.
Perhaps the military should reconsider these "benefits". In the days of conscript service and low pay, benefits like housing, commissary (and believe me, your local supermarket is priced the same or at worst 5 to 10% higher than the commissary)and PX (again, stocked with Armani and Waterford, but lacking in affordable and reasonable items) are no longer necessary.
Pay and allowances are now at a very comeptitive scale (and then some...don;t take my word for it...look up the pay charts and find out base pay, housing allowance (and make sure you get the local COLA figures), subsistance allowance, etc., then compare that with local salaries...you'll be surprized!)
I do not begrudge our military reasonable consditions, but the whining is skewed...this article didn't address the better areas and made it sound as though every house was a shanty...it just isn't so!
Wing commander came around to check out the new place, wanted to know why everyone was sleeping with their doors open. I was Charge of Quarters that week, and had to explain that it was because it was so hot in the rooms, and because the windows wouldn't open, we had to do something for air circulation. He called health services at the hospital and they came and checked and we were averaging around 90-95 degrees in each barracks room. Civil engineering had a new cooling system on order...due to be installed in November.
I was lucky to live at a show base. While our barracks and housing weren't the worst, they were better than a lot of places were. Our barracks was re-done only because we were the closest to Las Vegas Blvd, and it looked bad having this old style barracks sitting so close to the road. Eventually, all the barracks in the quad were refurbed, they were finishing up the last one as I was getting ready to depart the base in 1994.
It's not real surprising. We always felt that if Congress/Senate had to live in military housing instead of voting themselves payraises to buy themselves fancy houses...that we would have much better facilities to live in. The odds of that happening are about as good as my being recalled to go back in the Air Force.
I am only 31 & have never been in the military, but have heard some negative things from family & friends.
I was hoping that I would get more of the "real story" from some other Freepers!
The "shoddy personal care" you mention most certainly aggravates an already poor condition of these housing units.
I will wait for more reaction to this post before I fly off the handle!
FRegards,
CD
!
"Congress appropriated $890 million this year to replace and renovate 6,800 family homes worldwide. Bush, who wants the services to eliminate substandard housing by 2008, two years ahead of the services' schedule, proposed spending $1.1 billion next year to construct or improve 6,300 family homes and to support private development of an additional 28,000." Last month's terrorist attacks and the new focus on fighting terrorism will not curtail efforts to improve family housing, Edwards said."
Chill out...Bush is going to take care of it, come hell, high water, or terrorists.
Base pay: $2046 monthly
Housing Allowance: #888 monthly
Subsistance Allowance: $230 monthlyTHAT IS AN ANNUAL SALARY OF #37,872
That salary is $18.20/hourly...wages in Albuquerue come nowhere close to that and anyone making that figure can certainly afford housing...quite nice housing!
The article didn't tell you that! And, the salaries take a sharp upturn at the twelve year point...the Marine avistor (Captain) also didn't mention that his "re-enlistment bonus" as a flying officer would be in excess of $80,000!
Again, in today's military and at the pay we now have, housing shouldn't even be something the military should be maintaining or providing (except for the single troops).
See my post #12.
BTW, I do agree with that statement. So should anyone who believes in smaller, more efficient government.
I've lived in some appalling base housing over MY 20 years of active duty, and there are some that are worse than others, there are some that are TRULY horrendous, and there are some that aren't bad. These are probably valid complaints.
I'll see your "voice of experience" and raise you.
BTW...nearly 30K a year IS $14.42/hour...not a bad wage!
Does Wal-Mart sell blanks?
I got out of the USMC in 1993 as a Sgt (E5)....found a civilian job making $28k/year and was shocked
that it didn't go as far as my military pay had gone. Having to pay full price for day care, medical, dental
and no commissary privileges ate up my salary quickly.
While housing at many bases is definitely in poor shape it is possible to live on the local economy without
major hardship if you manage you money correctly - which is true whether you're civilian or military.
Sorry...Bush 1 was going to take care of it...as was Reagan and Clinton. I'll believe it when it happens.
I know TT 2 very well. TT1 is right next door. I lived there 35 years ago and they were old then and can only imagine what they are like today. I just remember the colors. Outside gray, inside gray or green. Those apartments and the housing is at least 50 years old, probably older. Housing was not the priority of the marines then, and after all the budget cuts, I'm sure housing has gone even further down on the priority list.
Next I bet you will be telling me you had superlative health care during your time in the military. I go way back and as a short timer, I saw how the enlisted were treated, it was shameful, and I wondered why they would they stay in the military. A very good friend rose in the ranks to be the administrative head of a very large military hospital. His opinion was like mine, not yours. I am glad you had a comfortable militay life, not many here or in the military will agree with you.
True...it's a great wage, and it's assuming that you're only working 40 hours a week.
On the other hand, if you're doing something other than sitting in an office...for example, working the flightline, pushing aircraft to make your sortie rate, or working in the heavy maintenance shop helping support the flightline while they're trying to make their sortie rate so we might get a day off next month, then 40 hours a week is a dream. We averaged between 10-12 hours per day. At least we weren't in the field and got to go home at the end of the day.
Then again...when I enlisted, I didn't join up for the money...because there isn't any. I didn't join up for the glory, because that all goes to the commanders. I joined up because it was the right thing to do.
Want to know why we lived on base? Because renting a place while in the military is a hassle. You don't get a choice when a new set of orders come, and sometimes orders come unexpectedly. What happens if you are in a 2 year rental agreement and you get orders before your 2 years are up? What happens when your 2 years are up, and you know you are going to get orders, but it may be several months down the road? How do you get your landlord to give you a flexible rental agreement? You don't, because landlords in areas around military bases know they can screw you over relatively easily. We only moved off base when we were able to buy a house. That's because after my father got done with his short tour in Korea, he was able to return to Scott for his next long tour with assuarances that he would serve 2 straight tours there. (He made E9 right after he got back, so he had some sway.)
Living off base is not as easy as some would have you believe. First, there is very little sense of community with folks off base since they know you may well be leaving at any time. Second, since you have no way of knowing when or where you might be leaving, it is hard to find flexible housing. Third, the housing allowance that you are given may well pay for rent or mortgage, but utilities, repairs, and upkeep make it more affordable to live on base. Does this mean that military folks shouldn't complain about base housing because they have it good? Not really, any landlord should still keep up the housing. At the same time, there are those who refuse "adequate" housing so they can have some of that housing allowance hit their bank account. They might have some problems getting people to listen to their complaints.
The health care system was not bad at all (granted, things deteriorated after the end of the draft...prior to that, we had the grads from Stanford, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, etc. under the "Berry Plan").
The military pioneered almost every EMT device and burn treatment regimen out there, as well as alomost every orthopedic device in use today (Hare traction spplints, every "Stryker" device made, MAST trousers, and a myriad of others).
I'm not sure that is the point of the article though. My contention is that, in the days of yesteryear, we needed housing, commisaaries, etc. Today...we don't! Our pay scale is more then competitive (again, look at the pay charts...even the lowest ranks average better than $12/hour with benefits!).
My point here is that this article paints a gloom and oom picture when that isn't the overall case at all. When the author quotes pay, he leaves out the fact that base housing isn't manadatory, and that the allowances afforded anyone who decides to live on the local econoomy can do so and be well compensated in pay allowances.
I said I did 27 years...11 of those overseas, so I apprecaite old housing and some of the drawbacks to that...then again, my family was moved, belongings and car moved...all at no expense to me.
The military is a good career with decent retirement benefits. I think we tend to read into these things and expect that government will tend to everything for us (not unlike welfare?) and that is a mind set that needs to be trashed. Today's military compensation is far better than many, many civilian counterparts (and I know, I know...the "bleeding and dyiing thing...but...how many of our forces are directly in the trigger puller business?).
In general, the author skewed his data and investigation and left out the offsets...that is not a fair assessment ofc consitions.
Thousands of regular folks work the same schedules, Bro...there is nothing different there (oh...30 days vacation, education benefits, health care...bit of an offset, huh?)
I never said it was an EASY career...just that it is now quite competitive as far as pay and allowances.
Their "biased or skewed" views may be inaccurate but also the picture you paint with facts figures and experience, also presents a view that does not meet with reality.
In reality, as a short timer, I lived in tar paper shacks, yet many were the times that when we were scheduled for fourteen hours missions, we would get things done in twelve, and return, guess what? We had to remain airborne to burn up the gas so that the next fiscal year they could ask for more. I saw too much waste, too little caring for the lower ranks. The military is made up of have and havenots, that will never change.
Note that I never said it was an easy career either. Also note that I never said that I joined up for the money. And as far as being competitive...it depends on what you do. If you have a job that doesn't cross over to the outside world, then yeah, you're getting paid more than you would be on the outside. Not many civilian infantrymen or artillery folks on the outside. But if you're working a high-tech field, you're not getting anything close to equivalent compensation, regardless of the outstanding benefits.
Sure, the "snuffies" get the manual labor and there are perks with promotion (gee, seems just like "reality", huh?)
Focus on what the article says...not your attitude about how hard you worked, etc. (no offense, Bro, but I lived in the paddies in a poncho for 22 months and my big reward was a Purple Ticker compliments of "Mr. Charles", so I have little sympathy for the 10 or twelve hour day BS...I work those hours now...so does 90% of my neighborhood).
What this premis of the article is has nothing to do with have or have not...it tells a tale that simply isn't accurate (and I demonstrated that with factual pay scales and charts).
Sorry your "short time" was so miserable...but...next time you or another vet start to walkanywhere...just look and see...I'll bet you always start off on your left foot...those years weren't as bad as we tend to make the, Bro...yep, we busted out butt and bitched, but we learned some valuable experiences. (And I know I am off subject now, but maybe, just maybe, a conscript requirement might instill a little accountability/responsibility in our young folks...and teach them a little respect for things like the consitution, the flag, and personal responsibility.)
attitude?? You bet, I lost my brother, he never came back, I got back in one piece. The war started and I was in line to do my share. Tell me all about attitude.
BUMP for that!
When I was first stationed here in Germany back in '83, the waiting list was extremely long. These days it's not so bad. Enlisted personnel who desire to live on base can almost get in as soon as they arrrive on station. The older stairwell stuff is pretty nasty but the new renovated stuff isn't too bad. Of course it's like living in the projects, you hear everything the neighbors say and too many people are still slobs around the common areas.
I currently live in townhouse style leased housing here at Spangdahlem and it's not too bad. The only complaint I have is the size. My house is a 3 bedroom with about 1000-1100 sq feet. Not exactly what I'm used to. I have a 2100 sq ft home in San Antonio that I dearly miss and when I retire sometime in 2005 (24 to 25 years service) or 2006 I plan on moving back to it.
Your short timer attitude betrays your bitchin', Bro...Thanks for serving, really, but enough of the war stories.
One thing we like here is that you do not get personal. Seems that you have not read that part, in fact if you look just above your next post you will find that little item.
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