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.
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