Fort Bragg Barracks Issue

April 30, 2008 By CJ
Posted in Life in the Military, Military News, Top Posts

I dialed into a bloggers roundtable yesterday with BG Dennis Rogers and CSM Deborah Strickland, Deputy Director and Command Sergeant Major of Installation Management Command respectively. While waiting for the attendees to dial in, Matt and I spoke a little about his recent trip to China and the fact that Blackfive is actually banned in China!! So, kudos to Matt for that esteemed honor!!

We were gathered to discuss the recent video that surfaced on YouTube about the barracks at Fort Bragg. The video depicted deplorable conditions, to include sewage leaks in the latrines and mold in various locations. It was assembled by the father of a Soldier who had recently returned from a deployment to Iraq staying in those very same barracks. Naturally, he was very upset with what he saw.

The entire issue with the barracks at Fort Bragg and other locations boils down to a single point of failure – NCO Leadership. As I’ve said numerous times here and everywhere else, our job as NCOs is to take care of Soldiers. Since the beginning of our military it has been an NCO responsibility to ensure that the living quarters of our Soldiers are up to standard. Naturally, that standard depends on the NCO inspecting the area, but there is a general agreement about the living conditions in which our Soldiers reside. The issue at Fort Bragg was an NCO leadership failure at every level from the most junior of NCOs to the to the most senior on the installation.

“It is my responsibility for maintaining barracks throughout the Army,” began BG Dennis Rogers’ opening statement to the bloggers present. “And in that role…I assume responsibility for the shortfalls in barracks maintenance.”

There was no parsing words. BG Rogers noted that we have let our Soldiers down with regard to the condition of living quarters for returning Soldiers. “There is no excuse for that,” he said.

Providing a contrast to the video making its rounds in the media and the internet, Rogers remarked that the actual living quarters – the beds, the furniture, the rooms – are practically brand new. There is a new HVAC ventilation system in the building, so the air quality is equally good.

The building being shown in the building is a Korean-war era, 1950’s vintage building at Fort Bragg. It is one of approximately 23 similar building scheduled for demolition on the installation. New barracks are being built, but the next ones aren’t expected to be finished until sometime next summer (2009).

CSM Strickland addressed the bloggers and took responsibility for her failures as well.

“I’m going to assume that least some of you are former enlisted or NCOs,” she said addressing us. “So you know that part of that burden really belongs to us.” The two most basic responsibilities of an NCO are accomplishment of the mission and THE WELFARE OF OUR SOLDIERS. This comes directly from the very creed that all NCOs should live by the moment they pin on those Sergeant stripes (or Corporal stripes in some instances).

CSM Strickland boiled the issue with the barracks at Fort Bragg down to a lapse between the appropriate hand off in responsibility from the rear detachment NCO leadership to the Garrison NCOs leadership. She said that they have addressed that issue very quickly and it’s unfortunate that it might give anyone the impression that this is the way we receive Soldiers returning from theater.

Senior Army leadership has directed a thorough walk-through of all barracks. For the most part, this has already taken place. The only places this has not taken place are at the installations or within units that were observing a 4-day pass. In these situations, the barracks are scheduled to be looked at within the next 72 hours.

This is where things will get a little tricky. The Army has a difficult task here. The Soldiers have some implied tasks as well. First of all, the barracks are the Soldiers’ homes. They live there; they eat there; they sleep there. Until they can afford to move into their own place or get married and move into a government provided family home, that is where they live. They need to ensure that they are treating it as such. It is up to the individual Soldier first and foremost to take care of his dwelling, whether a barracks room or single family home.

Second, it is the responsibility of the first line supervisor to check out the places where their Soldiers live. If they live in the barracks, it is a leadership responsibility to inspect those barracks to ensure that they live in sanitary conditions. Most Soldiers that live in barracks are younger Soldiers with little to no experience caring for a place or picking up after themselves. It’s a fact of life and probably worse today with kids growing up without any real responsibilities in the home prior to leaving. Soldiers that don’t live in barracks should also be visited, though different rules apply to Soldiers living off-post. However, there is nothing wrong with a supervisor requesting to stop by a subordinates home just to check up on family and make general observations about living conditions. Remember, Soldiers can be forced to live on post if their off-post dwellings are substandard, interfere with military duties or pose a risk to the Soldier.

Third, it is the responsibility of the commands to ensure that leaders are doing their jobs. They do this through several methods: personal interviews, counselings, anonymous surveys, tip lines, etc. Commands must enforce standards and clarify standards that NCOs are responsible for enforcing. Spot checks should be done at regular intervals.

The Sergeant Major of the Army has mandated that all Garrison Commanders and Command Sergeants Major check on these standards. These commanders and CSMs have made the assessment that Soldiers are, in fact, housed according to Army standards. The fact is that there are places in the Army that do not meet these standards. They have determined that those locations are isolated and do not represent the standard of living across the board in the Army.

Where those Soldiers were living in substandard barracks, “on-the-spot” corrections were made. Based off of some of the stories I’ve heard today talking to Soldiers from all over, these “on-the-spot” corrections involved CSMs and Commanders basically coming into barracks, yelling and shouting at the Soldiers. I’m sure some of it had to do with Soldiers not doing their jobs in the first place to ensure standards were being maintained, but a lot of it is the embarrassment of having a video posted on YouTube and commands acting hastily. At places where on-the-spot corrections are not substantial enough to improve conditions, IMC has directed that Soldiers be relocated while the work is done to fix the issue.

To prevent this issue from occurring in the future the IMC CSM will create a facilities management form that will be shared with all installation CSMs to inspect and ensure that Soldiers are living within established guidelines. These forms will be required to be filled out on a monthly basis and forward through Army chains. The forms will contain data compiled by leaders and Soldiers themselves, assessing the actual conditions in which they live. The forms will be used to provide recommendations directly to the Commanding General in order to provide quick resolution to major issues. It’s a boots on the ground perspective.

“All of us are kind of anxious about getting information flows so that it is timely and we can all affect whatever is affecting our soldiers on the ground,” said CSM Strickland. That is the reasoning behind the NCO quorum at the post and Major Command level.

My problem with issue alludes to something that LL wrote about in the comments section: this doesn’t seem very isolated. It wasn’t that long ago that we were dealing with this issue at Walter Reed. I also wrote back then that, having personally visited numerous rooms at Walter Reed, the issues at Walter Reed were blown way out of proportion. It’s quite possible they are that way today as well. I haven’t had any Soldiers living in barracks since 2004, so I haven’t been in them much in the past four years. However, I’ve seen good barracks and I’ve seen terrible barracks. I remember living in some utterly crappy barracks while I was stationed at Fort Huachuca. Those barracks are still standing, but I believe their offices now and not living quarters. It was always either too hot or too cold. Most Soldiers these days live in very decent barracks.

The Army is going through all of this because of some video, according to BG Rogers. It isn’t the reason we’re conducting all these inspections and finding all these issues. “That’s not the case,” he said. “There were a number of different work orders submitted in the last six month to work on these particular barracks.” I’m not saying anyone is deliberately misleading anyone else here, but go back and read the first comment to this post. These issues have been around since the first rotation of Afghanistan Soldiers began returning home in 2002.

My main concern that I brought I brought with BG Rogers and CSM Strickland was that we need to energize the NCO Corps. Since this came out and my original notice that I was taking part in this round table discussion, i’ve gotten a few emails and comments both here and through MySpace from Soldiers on different installations indicating this may not be an isolated incident. Add in the Walter Reed fiasco and these “isolated incidents” start looking bad for our side.

In response to this issue, the Sergeant Major of the Army, SMA Kenneth O. Preston, is sending out guidance soon related to his impression about this “got off balance,” according to CSM Strickland. She explained that frequently what happens is that things happen at the local and either don’t make it to the IMC level or arrive very slowly, which gives the appearance that the IMC leadership doesn’t care about these issues. The Army is good at trying to solve issues at the lowest level possible for all problems. This is good and bad in that sometimes this way of thinking prevents help from unexpected places that could assist in resolving the faster and better. The entire leadership for the Army expends a lot of effort, she said, in talking to NCOs about being more reactive and getting them back in the barracks.

“I think Soldiers have a higher expectation of what we do now,” she added. “They are performing at high levels – they’re deploying, going to war, they’re returning and their seeing how well one installation may address their returning Warriors and then they experience something less than that.” There has been a lot of discussion at the senior, Army-level leadership on how to make this more uniform, she continued.

Part of the problems, and I tend to agree, are that Soldiers are not going through the normal complaint procedures. It’s too easy to go ahead and put a video on YouTube or contact one’s Congressman or local media about major issues. The other part is that Soldiers don’t have faith in this system for a reason – leaders turn a blind eye. As leaders, it should be our responsibility to make life on the Soldier outside of military duties as comfortable as possible. The Lord knows that everything else about military service is full of pain, agony, discomfort, stress, and fatigue. The least we can do is ease that burden while they are “home”. Besides going through leadership channels, there is also the IG process that Soldiers should utilize if they think their leaders are failing them. I have had nothing but positive results from IGs. They haven’t always gone the way I would have wanted, but they explained the reality each time and I understand the rationale. The implied task is that leaders should empower Soldiers and make them aware of that process so they also know when and how to use it.

I brought my frustration that, while the majority of barracks on Army installations these days is top notch and hundreds of times better than what I had as a private, it’s the returning Soldiers that are getting shafted by being forced into substandard barracks until the current occupants of their permanent quarters are moved.

The Sergeant Major of the Army made this very clear on Monday to senior NCOs at the installation level: “We want to do what’s right by every Soldier. But, clearly, we want to do better by Soldiers that are returning from war.”

A few things to take away from this issue:

The Army is reacting to this specific issue and being proactive to ensure it doesn’t happen elsewhere. 99% of the time, we take care of our own. Every now and then, we fail. The majority of barracks are nice. Soldiers largely have rooms of their own these days and don’t have to share with anyone. There are some exceptions. With that said, part of me thinks that the Army would NEVER allow an officer, regardless of pay grade or rank, to live in these conditions. That is why NCOs must take the lead in preventing their troops from ever having to live like this again.

This is an extremely embarrassing event for the Army and frankly, I think the leadership was trying to sugarcoat the reality of what we’re seeing. But, they are acting to fix it!! Keep in mind as well, that there is nothing wrong with peeling paint. It’s ugly and unsightly, but it’s not a hazard so long as it isn’t lead-based. The people that had to largely bear the burden of getting these barracks up to standard? The Soldiers that returned from combat!

The major failure lies with the previous Reserve unit that was occupying the barracks prior to the 82nd unit returning from combat. They had no respect for their fellow brothers in arms and treated the barracks like their personal shoothouse.

I risk a lot being this honest as an active duty Soldier, but I’m not breaking any rules and stand by my words. NCOs need to get off their asses and take an interest in their Soldiers’ lives. If they can’t do that, they need to get out of my Army. I have no use for them. A Sergeant is not just a promotion and extra money. It’s responsibility and forward thinking!! I’m glad the leadership is addressing this issue directly, but they need to realize that they have a lot of catching up to do (when I say leadership, NCOs, I’m talking to you too!). The worst thing they can is try to white wash this problem – especially to a group of active, retired, and former military bloggers!!

It was refreshing to hear BG Roger and CSM Strickland take the responsibility for this. It is their ultimate responsibility, but the failings happened well below them at the installation and rear detachment level. I sure hope some OERs and NCOERs accurately reflect what happened at Fort Bragg. I hope that Officers and NCOs have been officially reprimanded and relieved of command or responsibility where necessary. We can move past this and learn from it, but I’m a bit skeptical. You’d think we had already learned something after the Walter Reed issue. NCOs, take heed! Wake up now! Do your jobs or the officers are going to do it for us. Where do we stand then?

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