Ft. Bragg barracks update
Well, the solution is….well, they haven’t figured one out yet.
Two weeks ago, after an inspection by SMA Grinston, Ft. Bragg was ordered to re-house 1200 soldiers living in the Smoke Bomb barracks due to excessive mold from leaking “mid-20th-century” A/C systems. Ft. Bragg says it would cost more to fix the A/Cs than to replace the buildings, and while they are starting to move some soldiers into school or married quarters, there are not enough available quarters and off-base apartments available to house all the soldiers needing them.
In the days since the initial announcement, spokespeople at Fort Bragg have reiterated that officials were taking a “deliberate phased approach, a process that entails coordination throughout the installation and with the Soldiers’ well-being in mind” to the move of more than 1,000 troops. However, details of that approach, or even assurances that it has begun, have yet to materialize.
On Aug. 10, five days after the Army announced the evacuation, a spokeswoman for Fort Bragg said that the leaders anticipated the moves would “take place over the next 30 days or sooner,” but in follow-on questions acknowledged that no one had actually been moved.
Almost a week after that admission, on Aug. 16, the Army put out a press release that announced soldiers were “prepping to relocate to various available barracks rooms around the installation.” Days later, the media office explained that “the relocation process can begin as early as this week” — but still did not offer any details on when the relocations would begin.
The Army also couldn’t say how many soldiers would be offered a housing allowance and the ability to move off base that the service touted in its statement.
Task & Purpose recently reported at least a dozen families from Fort Belvoir, Virginia, had been displaced due to unlivable conditions on that base.
Some of the issues have been blamed on private housing contractors. Balfour Beatty Communities, which manages 55 housing communities on military bases, has been accused of ignoring residents’ concerns about hazardous living conditions and pleaded guilty last year to defrauding the Army, Air Force and Navy by manipulating maintenance records to get bonus payouts it didn’t deserve.
If this isn’t a textbook example: Military sees a problem, mandates a solution. A civilian subcontractor appears to be at fault – think they will be forced to take full responsibility? And the solution, in this case moving all the affected troops, seems not to even be physically or fiscally possible (at least not without ordering a BUNCH of GP-medium tents) to cover the next 1500-2000 days or so.
Category: "The Floggings Will Continue Until Morale Improves", "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Army, Big Army
Fort Bragg isn’t the only barracks that are unlivable.
It would be easier to list the military installations that are habitable.
Concur.
Agreed.
They don’t look like any kind of barracks I ever lived in.
Air conditioned? Really?
Our barracks still had steel truss rods holding the walls up. They worked pretty good, too.
And where are the red triangular MINES signs on the lawn?
My ex called it “cinderblock hell” and that was an improvement from WWII surplus.
For me back in 66 or so those WW11 barracks were an improvement compared to the GP medium that I lived in for about 9 months in the Dominican Republic. And it seems to be a problem up at Fort Lewis, not the new name.
The usual course of action, spread buttocks insert one thumb, suck on the other and change thumbs every two minutes. Meanwhile the current administration is handing out all it can to cronies, illegal aliens and welfare flunkies.
You left out the college students with their loan forgiveness.
Yeah, gotta help “Skid” and his buds out after they spent 6 years getting a Four-Year Degree in Gender Studies because the only jobs they can find with that are either in a warehouse or serving coffee at Starbucks!
Also left out the billions of dollars of DoD equipment being given to Ukraine, which will have to be replaced down the line using dollars from the defense budget, which will have to be taken from some other line item.
Or left behind in Afghanistan so the people we were fighting could rear themselves.
Don’t forget that one.
Air conditioning systems had barely been invented by the mid-20th century. Granted, there have been unforeseen problems with the design of ventilation systems.
Notably, Legionella bacteria was named after the outbreak during a 1976 Legionairres convention in Philadelphia.
Heaven forbid that anyone might second guess SMA but would it be possible to undertake smaller portions of the project, say one floor of a building at a time and temporarily rehouse maybe 100 occupants at time.
It’s a hell of a design situation that requires destruction and reconstruction to remedy a problem with known deficiencies.
Worse, consider public schools. Moonbat liberal socialists actually believe that the physical facility of a government indoctrination center impacts the outcome of “teaching”.
If you did it piecemeal, it would probably take five times as long to resolve, plus during that time you have troops exposed to all kinds of construction waste, which will inevitably lead to a flood of commercials during Judge Judy reruns ten years from now with “We’re you stationed at Fort Bragg in 2022? If so, you’re probably already dead.”
Home Depot sells 5000 BTU A/C units for about a hundred bucks. A couple of those should be enough for a floor in the barracks, after all, it’s an Army base not a Chair Force base where they would have one for every Airman in the room…
I had a solo room, with air conditioning while at Kadena. When I got to Norton, I had a single room with air conditioning and a private bath. Mini fridge as well. Cable TV I had to pay for.
I know, the horror. But I don’t hear anybody I work with who were in other branches of service complaining about air force chow halls.
“…physical facility…”
That was an actual test question in an Intro. to Sociology college course I took. I got it wrong.
Shelter Half, latrine ditch, MRE, Motrin, clean socks…. Walk it off. The poor pricks have no AC.
This was all pretty much a no brainer. Once Homey da Klown and his crew pushed through that privatization of the military housing, this started to happen. It is massively a problem around Lejeune, with housing that is unlivable and should be condemned. People stuck in those shitholes have been complaining for years about unsafe conditions in them. And nothing has been done.
“Unvaxxed Navy Sailors Face ‘Deplorable’ Living Conditions While Religious Exemptions Pend”
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/unvaxxed-navy-sailors-face-deplorable-living-conditions-inability-leave-while-religious-exemptions-pend
“U.S. Navy service members who are seeking religious exemptions to the Department of Defense’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate have been transferred into deplorable living conditions and, in some cases, are unable to leave while awaiting termination from the military, according to court documents.”
“…There is mold everywhere and the barge’s toilets back up and leak. The water leaks out of the base of the toilet and collects near my rack and out into the hall.”
“There is some sort of worm thriving in the stagnant water in the toilet bowls and on the floor in the leaked water around the base of the toilets.”
“The military is no stranger to undesirable living conditions for active-duty members.”
“One sailor who is now part of the class action lawsuit said in a court-filed declaration that they “could not leave the area” after asking to be terminated from the military due to religious objections to the mandate and were moved to the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier’s berthing barge, where the conditions are “deplorable.”
“Because I could not leave the area, I moved onto the berthing barge for the Eisenhower. The conditions on the barge are deplorable, much like the USS George Washington, which is anchored in the same shipyard.”
A special place in Hell.
Damn, that toilet is a perfect analogy for the Brandon Administration.
Pretty sure that photo was taken in the Executive’s Men’s Room of the proud but humble woman owned business that sells software to the federal government formerly located in Bethesda Maryland after the Vice President, against common sense, consumed a day old Atomic Burrito.
Why am I not surprised. The highest enlisted man in the Army says to do something and the officers say, “Okay, sure, buddy. We’ll get right on it.” Then, they go about their day like they never heard anything from the common enlisted.
Probably because they know SMA Grinston is a self-serving Turd.
And rightfully so.
Got an idea. Since, for some reason I can’t possibly understand, Nidal Hasan is still breathing, maybe he could be housed here.
So, when they finally execute him, will it be hanging or the firing squad for the dude in the wheelchair? (Penalty in effect at the time, you know… )
It’s too bad Hasan couldn’t have been in the air for Daniel Bernath’s Final Ride.
How about the kin of the deceased take turns pushing his wheelchair into the top of the stairwell of One World Trade Center?
“Let’s roll!”
The Army takes these things seriously, at least when the right amount of pressure is put on them. In 2019 my Civilian supervisor told me I’d be updating the daily “Housing Update Brief” slides. The Civilian who had been doing it showed me how and told me there was a weekly CG brief he rarely attended. Sure enough, within two weeks I was told to attend those, and after a month the Civilian who briefed the CG passed the buck down to me. A week later I was attending the Senior Leader Update Brief via video meeting with the Director of the Army Staff. The first time I did so, my Ops SGM disappeared after ensuring I was there, then the J3 (a COL) to me “you got this” and left me with the CG, CSM, and the other staff Directors. It got to the point where the CoS and a couple other COLs, a few GS-13 or higher DACs, and I (SFC) were sitting in the conference room watching a LTG and his staff talk for 90 minutes. Fun times.
I remember when they updated Schofield back in the day.
Nothing but the best for the King’s Army?
Arms for some land, distant in ideals and morals = good?
Healthy living conditions for our bravest = bad?
I don’t always want to see a junta, but when I do we’ve been co-opted by a corrupt pedo puppet that answers only to a globalist network of businesslizardmen that want to control or kill every ‘useless eater’ on planet earth.
Fuck Joe Potato, every single individual that still believes in his nightmare delivered, and Delenda est Potomacus
And yet, the star-wearing politicians and e9’s in the five sided puzzle palace wonder why we have a retention and recruiting problem.
Paul Pelosi walks on an egregious D Whilst I, but a PFC blows a .079999999999 and his child starves as he does 45&45 with a BCD as a rotten cherry because ‘mUh diSCiPLiNE’.
Fucking hypocrites, cowards, and fools.
If the “undocumented immigrants” pouring across the border were housed in these conditions, there would be front page articles in The New York Times and Washington Post condemning this inhumane treatment.
Maybe spend some of that $23 million its gonna take to change the name/signage/ect and spend it on the troops? Only AC I saw @ Bragg in ’74 was an open window with a fan on a stand. Same as the 1850 barracks in Germany before that…but no fan. No fan @ Knox or Sill in ’71 either.
I’d bet that 18th Airborne Corps HQ buildings are comfy.
And the Army goes rolling along….
Probably an All-Points Logistics contract.
Protest denied!
So I’m guessing that today’s Soldiers no longer get a Shelter Half (8340-01-026-6090) issued with their CTA 50-900?/s
No, but we get a “bivvy cover” which works pretty well when you use both sleeping bags in layers as per the intended design. Plus we get the “Light Fighter” pop-up tent which I think is a pretty nice piece of kit.
An individual combat shelter or something…
8340-01-628-8855 Lite Fighter 1 Individual Shelter System.
I’ve been retired for 17 years and off active duty since 1996, but this just goes to show you that the more things change, the more they stay the same. This is an institutional problem in the Army because the only soldiers who live in the barracks (i.e. single and mostly E-5 and below) are the demographic that the Army cares least about and considers the most expendable.
Even if the Army embarks on an ambitious program to upgrade the barracks, none of the soldiers who are in now will ever see it – by the time the upgrades are done, they’ll either have ETSd or they’ll be married and living in family housing or off-post somewhere.
If senior NCOs or officers had to live in the barracks, they’d be fixed ASAP.
Some years ago I read a biography of Gen Curtis LeMay, the USAAF/USAF general who was the original founder of Strategic Air Command.
It’s always been a running joke in the military that the USAF has better living spaces (they call them “dormitories” not “barracks”) and better food than the Army but what I didn’t realize until I read the book was that this was absolutely intentional and deliberate. LeMay knew that if he wanted to retain the kind of intelligent, motivated and self-disciplined enlisted technicians he needed to keep his high-tech SAC functioning would not put up with the primitive, semi-prison conditions typical of Army barracks at the time.
So he showed them that he valued them by giving them decent living conditions and decent food. LeMay knew that the cost of providing these “luxuries” would be more than offset by the savings of not having to re-train new Airmen to replace those who left the service because they were tired of miserable living conditions.
It’s unfortunate that 70+ years on, the Army has not learned the same lesson that LeMay knew after WWII.
We have it on record from a ‘Squid pretending to be a Zoomie’ that some -Dogs, or doggies, do enjoy the occasional beating.
Bossman routinely does misplace that lovely feeling, reminds us how many O’s in goose, and the fullness condition of the pattern.
Enfuntree leads the way!*
*With the KoB’s very much wanted assistance.
CSM Taylor’s Motivationals, Vol 1: “The Army is really simple when you think about it. Wander around all day in the woods, lookin’ for folks to kill. At the end of the day you find a place, ‘The place sucks. Let’s stay here!’. Too easy, men.”
Guns laid, tubes hot, grid squares plotted for a Time On Target Forward Rolling Barrage by your command. Lanyards tight awaiting weapons free call.
I tell people if the Air Force and Navy are going to build an air station they do it in different order. The AF builds the commissary, good base housing and barracks then flightlines, runways and the other accoutrements. The Navy starts with the operational side and moves on to the quality of life stuff.
When money runs out guess what gets skimped on and what gets finished right.
I thought the Air Force started with the golf course.
Le Shit!! LOL
Shows you what I know about the AF
You mean the part of the base put in an environmental preserve to offset the carbon signature of the rest? It’s not recreational, it’s a planet saver! And it’s the AF equivalent of an obstacle course for training purposes.
It’s a waste of land better suited for a rifle range.
After having wasted several years and a half ton of money running that “obstacle course” I agree wholeheartedly.
Curtis LeMay was always spoken about in hushed, reverent tones in my parent’s house. My dad (LtCol D) was SAC from it’s inception. LeMay was a deity.
Ol’ Poe recently watched a video showing how LeMay brought the Japanese to their knees by changing his predecessor’s ineffective, high-altitude, daylight B-29 raids to low-level night raids using incendiary bombs instead of HE. First concentrating on Tokyo until it was destroyed, then moving on to smaller cities, he had them ready to surrender even before we nuked them.
Considering the number of American lives he saved by forestalling an invasion of the Japanese homeland, he was a deity indeed… 👍
My father’s last duty assignment was at Wright-Patterson. I lost a bit of sleep before I got used to the sensation (sound + vibration) of B-52s taking off & flying overhead en masse at 3 AM during alerts.
Young Poe was raised in a small Oklahoma town that was on the flight path between several bomber bases in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas. He well remembers the mass formation flights of B-29’s frequently passing over between the end of WWII until after Korea. Then came the even bigger B-36’s.
It was an awesome spectacle, with the air and the ground vibrating fearsomely and one could only imagine the horror if they had actually been bombing as they did in the wars.
I has the envies. I would like to think I saw a B-36, but at this point I think it’s just wishful thinking with a hazy memory.
In a novel, Prezzy announces
VOPOTUS Effective immediately, all General/Flag Officers shall live in the EM barracks of their respective installations, no more than one week in any one building, and not repeating any building until all have been occupied. GO/FO shall remain on base at all times. GO/FO shall not utilize any other quarters or facility for bathing, sleeping, bodily functions, or off duty time. This to remain in effect until barracks at that facility are up to military standard, and also approved by my designated representatives. Findings of wrongdoing are to be prosecuted. Funds are hereby available for repairs from the (proper prezzy slushy) fund. Remediations go in reverse rank order, jr EM barracks first. GO/FO shall move to unrepaired barracks as work continues.
(grin)
Whatever happened to Quonset huts?
I lived in a Quonset hut at PLDC, Camp Jackson, JAN 1990. I think we were the last class to use them.
When I was a kid we lived in half of one somewhere in San Francisco where my father (Navy) was stationed TDY.
Beans, here’s the best of both worlds. An 18×35 Quonset style tent that four people can set up in about 25 minutes:
8340-01-533-1691 (Green)
8340-01-533-1687 (Tan)
Yeah, Heartbreak Ridge.
Heartbreak Ridge – Clarifying Roles and Objectives.avi – YouTube
Hack Stone resided in a Quonset Hut at the lower MAU Camp Subic Bay, and six months at the foot of Mount Fuji while with the Adorable Deplorables of Delta Company 1st Tracked vehicle Battalion.
You may find yourself living in a Quonset Hut
And you may find yourself at the foot of a long dormant volcano
And you may ask yourself
Gunny, how did I get here.
And you may ask yourself, “What is that beautiful house?”
https://youtu.be/5IsSpAOD6K8
Typical. Know about the problem. Fail to fix the problem when it was still a matter of prevention. Problem grows to catastrophic proportions. Problem is highlighted by others as unacceptable. Army takes action as a result of bad press. Army fixes problem through massive infusion of cash that should be used to prevent the next two problems.
This is my problem in micro: I’ve been trying to get the army to fix the fan in my bathroom for a year to prevent black mold. I’ve finally got it to the point where all they have to do is hook the wires together but can’t seem to lead them there.
To ol’ Poe’s way of thinking, air conditioning in the barracks just makes those spring and summer field exercises, not to mention combat operations, that much harder to take.
Of course, in this new Woke Army, they’ll probably have air conditioning in the field and on combat ops before long to keep their precious little snowflakes from melting… 😜
Maybe it’ll be X-Box field exercises and combat, in an air-conditioned building somewhere?
My personal opinion is that “modern” construction techniques and AC are the cause of black mold.
Poe, all the new Woke Army has to do is go down to the Can Point/PDO Yard and dig out those old AN/GRC-122/142 RATT Rig shelters. They were air-conditioned/heated./s
It’s in outlying buildings and clinics as well. I’m sick with copd/never smoker. No one cares. “You can’t prove we dis it.”