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 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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