Posted on 05/11/2008 9:48:29 PM PDT by Dawnsblood
The latest outrage is a father's video of a U.S. Army barracks at Fort Bragg, N.C., the home of the 82nd Airborne Division.
It shows the quarters where his soldier son and other soldier sons were sent to live upon their return from combat. Mold and mildew and peeling paint are bad enough, but what about a big barracks bathroom ankle-deep in raw sewage?
Scandals like this latest one and an earlier eruption of public outrage over the miserably maintained quarters where wounded soldiers were warehoused at Walter Reed Army Hospital are an indictment of the core competency of our Army.
If the Army cannot afford to maintain minimally decent standards of housing and feeding our soldiers - and treat them with the best medical care and all the loving attention they deserve when they're wounded in combat - then, by God, the Army doesn't deserve to have ANY soldiers at all.
There's only one real demand we place on the Army: That the institution turn out a well trained, well-armed, highly motivated American soldier to protect our nation and defeat our enemies.
If this job is beyond the grasp of those who run the U.S. Army, then the Army needs new leadership that understands this demand and can get the job done every day, not just on those days when the hot light of scandal is shining in one dark corner or another.
(Excerpt) Read more at sltrib.com ...
I am ashamed of this as an American, and it needs to get fixed.
This could simply be a severe budget constraint problem, but I strongly suspect that it’s actually full blown CYA - don’t make waves, don’t stick your neck out, don’t draw attention to yourself by complaining or requesting things that don’t interest the top brass.
It is not just the Army, though. The condition of the housing for the soldiers at the Navy Weapons Deopt in Colts Neck, NJ is poor as well. I spoke to a Marine who works at the base, who told me that he lives off-base and receives a stipend for off-base housing.
He asserted that although the billets were brand new, the floors had already started to buckle. So it is present everywhere in the Armed Forces, not just the Army
> The best military leaders I’ve known never ate or slept until they’d first seen to the needs of their soldiers. Never. Got that? NEVER.
The list of “the best military leaders” Joe Galloway would know is impressive indeed: it includes Gen. Hal Moore, S-Maj Basil Plumley and the late Rick Rescorla (all heroes of Ia Drang). Galloway therefore writes with some considerable authority, and the Army should take immediate steps to pay careful attention.
Anybody who has gone their entire lives living in houses where a sewer pipe has NEVER backed up or plugged up, raise your hand.
Anybody?
All I ever hear from liberals is how much Bush has spent on the military and how it’s so terrible that he’s spending money on the military. Well, we haven’t spent enough if you ask me.
And here's the freakin' clincher: Barracks and Building INSPECTIONS are done so regularly, no one was NOT noticing a "plumbing issue".
What are disasters and messes to the military are usually considered "normal" in the civilian life world.
Getting Dems to approve ANY MONEY for military has always been difficult.
Fort Bragg is undergoing a HUGE change - with closing out Pope AFB, and expansion in other ways -- the areas surrounding Fort Bragg are looking at incoming of 10,000 newer people to the area.
I have nothing to say about this "complaining dad's" input on the "situation" at Fort Bragg except to wonder what the hell he was thinking when he went public with his complaint, and in a time of war.
There’s verbiage and word choices selected for by this author which have my hackles raised.
You know what he was thinking, he wanted his son transfered to some where like Adak Alaska for his commentary instead of returning to Iraq.
Or mustered out to shut the old man up.
(1976 - 1996) Worked with Army forces in my capacity as a Marine and as a Navy Corpsman.
(2005 - 2008) Scumbag contractor (their words) Iraq, Afghanistan
CRCX2
Buffoons = Army Leadership (Maj & above and the fools that the same leadership promote in the enlisted ranks SFC-SGTMAJ) Sorry to be so brutal but when you see the troops suffer like this it is a inbred problem with the Army leadership.
Joe Galloway's screed does not read as a "realistic" experience of one touting such military experience. Anyone with any *real* experience in military life knows -- an overflowing "sewage" pipe could just as readily been caused by a "joke" behavior by a recruit(s). Yep, there are times when a barracks, especially an all male barracks does and can resemble an Animal House Frat.
Galloway's screed has a certain lack of something.
In civilian life, the "great boss" tends to be more the exception than the norm. The great "team" work experience is usually more the exception than the norm.
And through Iraq and Afghanistan, I got to hear the rumbles from various wings and divisions in active duty about 3 incompetent boobs out of hundreds of excellent leaders.
It happens.
Sure, she hated the duration she was under this incompetent, but danged if she didn't learn a TON about reality and life. A side benefit was the entire group under this leader were fairly united in their dislike of him, and so, despite his lack of skills, they all pulled together and ran the unit like a top. Definitely, the Peter Principle in play.
The worst part of any job (be it civilian or military)? Having to work with other (flawed) people.
A major indictment of the core competency of our Army? Who is kidding whom here.
When "core competency of our Army" is equated to the level of property managers??? The "core competency of our Army" is equated to inner city Section 8 housing facilitators?
Let's go a step further then. You wouldn't believe the squalid conditions our TROOPS endure at medical facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan. There's DUST everywhere! INDICT THE MILITARY for core incompetency!
Hell, our poor guys and gals also have to live in "shared tents" when they go to war (tents, if they are among the lucky ones)! OMG. And the raw sewage from the countries they go to definitely exhibit incompetency in our military leadership - subjecting our troops to stuff like that. Oh dear.
I got blocked and my comments removed by the dad’s you tube video because I told him that his son couldn’t take care of himself or the barracks he lived in and listed how to fix each problem he found.
if the barracks was trashed it is because none of those living there are cleaning after themselves or cleaning it themselves.
Perhaps dad expect a bevy of Mexican maids to square it away while his son sips mint juleps on the parade grounds.
I really do not have a problem with flawed people (being the chief flawed biological unit that I am) what I do have a problem with is incompetent, self absorbed pompous ass’s that excel in a vacuum. Afghanistan is a prime example Bagram AFB (run by the Army) is an example of incompetence, if it was left to me I would recall every commander of that base except the 1st and charge all them with fraud. the conditions are primeval. Not the troops ever but the leadership.
You’re right. As long as there aren’t muzzies setting IEDs in suburbia, most Americans could care less for the military. This is Clinton’s legacy at its worst.
IIRC, the folks at Bagram have it pretty nice.
I was in the San Francisco Bay Area when my daughter was in Afghanistan Spring 2002. It was mostly the WWI and WWII generationers who had my back. But this younger generation of Americans? The biggest comment I got from them was: "I'd never let my kid be in the military because I love my child so much". Meaning, I didn't.
Their comments didn't bother me per se, considering the source, but I saw and knew their children to be first-class, full roaming Class-5 vapor, spoiled brats. Their parents couldn't see it. Everyone else around them saw it, including me. That's what bothered me -- the elitist "on the ground" so-called adult raising dysfunctional offspring.
Anyone with a love/hate attitude having served in military, I consider to be someone who's really been there. Anyone who indicts the entire military on a snapshot imaging, is not to be taken for real.
It would be in keeping form for Democrats to use the military budget for arms, vests, etc., to be diverted into "housing" issues.
Treating our military like "homeless".
Thank you for your attempts to raise clarity on the issue of the Dad and his sewage "issues".
Somewhere along the line, an inversion occurred amongst the top brass's outlook that, IMHO is the root of these types of problems. At one time, "leadership," was the foremost quality sought amongst the officer class. Pre-commissionees, whether Academy, OCS or ROTC were all inculcated with the desire to lead effectively...with "management" being but one of many qualities necessary to lead. It seems that during my 10 years of active commissioned service, "Management" became the primary sought after trait, with, "leadership" being just another quality in the long list of traits of a "manager."
When viewed in this context, it's not really hard to see how the barracks of America's premier combat division can fall into such disrepair. I'm sure at some point, cleaning them up was not considered, "cost-effective."
Most kids going to college really like the "dorm" idea until after multiple semesters when they are really serious about getting sleep, getting to study and not being disturbed by parties and late night events at the dorm.
It's the same with military.
lol! Re Bagram. My daughter and others would probably agree with your assessment, and would also kick sand in your face for writing publically this sentiment.
lol! That's what most the troops in the field in them there parts have to say about those at Bagram too.
I’ve holy stoned decks in a wooden barracks. Nothing this dad whined about would have stopped me from living there or from fixing the problems I saw in his video.
Mildew in the ceiling tiles take them out spray them with mildew cleaner and put them in the sun for a few hours, paint as needed.
Broken toilet seat, go midnight requisition one from an empty room or a nearby barracks.
Sewer gases from the drains of removed water fountains? The army has millions of rolls of this olive drab tape they use for anything and everything and no one could plug a pipe with it? A Marine would find a new scuttlebutt and install it.
I did all of the above and more in my barracks and when we were done our CO inspected them and ran his bare hands underneath the rim of the facilities to ensure there was no foreign matter inside the bowls.
The tools, the experts, the materials are all right there, on base, working alongside each other. The rules are the rules, in military life, and then there are the "rules".
The higher up one goes in military, as well as civilian life, one seems to carry with them this ability to remember how they had to "struggle" on their own, and each vows to ensure to make it better for those "below" them, when the simple fact of the matter is -- it is what it is.
Here we have an author, Joe Galloway, who's well connected with higher ups, writing about how awful it is to be a grunt. And accusing military top brass of incompetency.
lol
Bring Back "Catch 22"! lol
Their comments didn't bother me per se, considering the source, but I saw and knew their children to be first-class, full roaming Class-5 vapor, spoiled brats. Their parents couldn't see it. Everyone else around them saw it, including me. That's what bothered me -- the elitist "on the ground" so-called adult raising dysfunctional offspring.
These offspring often, and at an amazingly early age, express uninhibited loathing of their ostensibly loving parents - who, if they truly loved their children, would give them proper upbringing including behavior parameters.
Children need behavior parameters for a sense of security in the universe.
A good and loving parent cannot always be a friend to one's son or daughter.
True. Absolutely true.
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