Fort Bragg’s barracks
OK, it’s my turn. Everyone else has had their say on this, and I’ve been stewing about it since I first saw the video last week (or it seems like it was last week, anyway). If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s the video;
Nearly everyone has said that somehow it’s Bush’s fault, or those pencil-necks in the Pentagon, that the troops return from war to such squalor. It’s an uncaring government that warehouses it’s elite fighting force in such filth. The same ignorance I heard when the Washington Post went after Walter Reed (a story for which they earned a Pulitzer Prize because they nailed some brass to the wall and got them fired). Actually, this story is just exactly like the Walter Reed story. It’s not the fault of Army brass, no matter how, nor who, wants to point their fingers at some three-star.
The Army long ago decided that they’d have civilian contractors called facility engineers who maintained their buildings. The individual soldiers would report leaks, damage, electric problems to their noncommissioned officer chain-of-command, who would, in turn, submit work orders to fix those things. The civilian lazy-ass facility engineers would then fix the problem in their own sweet time. How does an NCO ride herd on pogue-ass civilians? Usually with favors, never with the usual flair and aplomb of a combat arms NCO, though, piss off a facility engineer and your barracks will fall down around your ears.
Now the system breaks down when soldiers actually deploy and there is no one to report deficiencies. Actually, for the facility engineers it means a good time of sitting around the shop complaining there’s nothing to do. There’s a system in place wherein facility engineers inspect the empty barracks periodically – the only check on them is that they have to initial an inspection checklist- easily accomplished from anywhere in the world without actually looking at the barracks.
Looking at the video, one thing in it makes me think this isn’t the fault of anyone in the chain-of-command. The broken toilet seat. It didn’t break all by itself, soldiers had to present when it broke meaning that it must’ve been reported. No NCO would let something like that go unreported, especially an NCO in America’s Guard of Honor. Unless the seat broke after the deployment – which means a civilian employee had to have been present when it broke, and since they’re the guys who fix that stuff, it should have been fixed immediately.
I’ve made the statement other places that I’ve lived in those same buildings thirty years ago, and that’s true. They house hundred of soldiers in each building and every soldier is responsible for their own living areas, and the cinderblock buildings built in the late 50s need constant maintenance, but the civilian pogues aren’t up to the task. They can’t be fired for incompetence or laziness – it’s a union thing. I don’t know how many times I’d find a truck with one or two of them in it parked out the woods snoozing in the shade.
The chain-of-command has the primary task of preparing men for war and fighting that war. The facility engineers are responsible for maintaining decent living conditions for them. Let’s get this story straight. Even though the command struction is RESPONSIBLE for the filthy conditions in those barracks, they don’t have the AUTHORITY to make the facility engineers do their job.
And it’s not big news when a few janitors and plumbers lose their jobs, but it is big news when a general or two get fired. Firing generals doesn’t fix the problem, though. All the facility engineers have to say is “We don’t get enough money to maintain empty barracks” so the media can take potshots at the administration. How much does it cost to fix a toilet seat?
Is someone going to tell me with a straight face that there wasn’t enough money on Fort Bragg to fix a toilet seat? That there wasn’t a toilet seat in the plumbing shop to fix that one?
How many of you NCOs have gone out and paid for repairs to your barracks out of your pocket because the facility engineers wouldn’t fix something for months and you have an inspection coming up? I wish I had all of that money back.
The facility engineers have been broken for as long as I can remember. The only thing I fault the Army for is not firing every damn one of them and contracting out the maintenance of the facilities to private companies with an annual bidding process to keep them on their toes.
The answer isn’t asking Congress to get involved, though; they’d turn it all into one big soup sandwich.
Category: Support the troops
I was in Bldg 18 a/k/a Butternut at Walter Reed on and off for about a year before Hanoi Dana wrote her hit piece. I also attended the sidewalk press conference a number of wounded called just days after the story’s publication where they defended Walter Reed. Somehow that didn’t make news… Bldg 18 had two unihabitable rooms. One the guy didn’t want the room fixed because once it was he’d get a room mate. The other guy was billed for the holes in his walls. He put them there. He also left food anywhere and everywhere. As he was in Medical Hold Company, he couldn’t be disciplined. Plus dad was a General, not that they got along, but he’d throw that out there for people’s consideration/intimidation. Working from raw memory, so there might be a minor error about the total number of rooms in Bldg 18. When inspected, 2 rooms were taken out of service and another 5 failed inspection, but people stayed. Think that was out of 76 rooms. I remember the hallways being kinda dark and drab, but inside the rooms I saw seemed as nice as a college grad school dorm. The day room didn’t show any signs of insects or rodents. If it had, there’s no way I’d have left what I did, fresh things from commercial bakers, pretzels, coffee cake, bagels and such that were not individually packaged. The second half of the WaPo’s re-enactment of Pearl Harbor at Walter Reed involved patient issues about appointments, paperwork and medical records. THAT IS WHERE DANA PROEST DID THE MOST DAMAGE. The CG wasn’t even there a year but he was already making progress to making things in that area better. So much so that the patients felt things were getting better. That was one of the reasons the patients called that press conference. Some of the “patient issues” Dana Priest hyped are the same ones I’m fighting when I help an elderly relative who’s being cared for in one of the best hospital systems. What Priest was trading on was that great sense of graditude… Read more »
I spent almost all of 1969 in Portsmouth Naval hospital. It was an open bay ward except for officers who had two man rooms. The patients that were ambulatory took care of cleaning the ward & head. I was treated as well or better there then at any civilian hospital I’ve been in. The nurses & Corpsman were great folks.
I always suspected there was more to the Walter Reed deal then what we were told on the news.
Damn it. I get so tired of the SSDD. You know, when something needs to get done, don’t leave it to the civilian gov’t worker who will lay blame on the higher ups(not that they haven’t been guilty). Few take it serious as was my experience militarilybecause they often have the mindset that it’s all a sham.. SO much waste and bs, that much went undone because it was a “what’s in it for me?” mentality. Argh. Generals and pet projects before the welfare of fighting soldiers, peacetime dividends squandered.
As for the care of the wounded, I am sure they were well taken care of as Raoul points out…the media spin never ends. But our soldiers, war or no, should never have to look at that squalor. I know there was enough of that in Iraq. It isn’t right.