Comments on: Army Widens Probe Into Bad Barracks

Video Shot By GI's Dad Showed Horrid Conditions At Fort Bragg, Sparking Worldwide Inspections

[it_oldtimer]

News people, you really are such insufferable ****s. You''ll do and say anything to get your articles published, won''t you? It''s all about the fees and bonuses, isn''t it? Where''s YOUR professional integrity? Where is it?

You have no integrity. We all know that now. You don''t even know what the word "integrity" means any more.

Be ashamed, newsmen and newswomwen. Be very ashamed. You were once somebody, but you have made yourselves nobody now.

[it_oldtimer]

@ NonayaBiness

You''re absolutely right: this article is 100% media hype, 0% real, factual substance.

These News people have to make a living somehow, I guess, no matter how obviously phony their "news" may be.

[veteran72]

Why, when I was a young soldier, we had to slog through 10 miles of backed-up, rotten, festering sewage in a blizzard, just to take a dump!!!.....
And weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee loved it!!!

(Apologies to Saturday Night Live)

[nonayabiness]

I''ve actually been to the barracks of the 82nd Airborne, about 10 years ago. At that time they had just renovated my friend''s quarters. It was simple, but nice, no worse certainly than my dorm room at college, just the basics, a four corner cinderblock room.

I do wonder if this has not been blown out of proportion. Sewer/drainage backups happen. Had one in my new home when it was only 5 years old. If this is quite commonplace, why are we hearing about one incident now?

[it_oldtimer]

If you think this particular soldier is a whiny wimp, write his whiny father here:

[e-mail]

[it_oldtimer]

I think my comments pretty much close this thread and this subject. Anybody that''s still complaining, after this post, is truly a pathetic dweeb.

[it_oldtimer]

I might also add that those "1950''s Army barracks" are actually newer than the ubiquitous Marine and Navy "Quonset huts" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quonset_hut) that were built a decade earlier, and which are still very much in regular use today.

[it_oldtimer]

Quote: bequialife to IT_Oldtimer: "Thank you for your service... "

You''d have to actually SEE these 1950''s buildings to understand that they will NEVER be truly "outdated". There is no mold, sewage, peeling paint or neglect. They are kept in pristine shape, just like the day they were built! Those guys back in the 1950''s sure knew how to build a basic barracks, that''s all I can say!

They are simple, cheap, extremely durable, utilitarian and efficient. They cost only a few thousand dollars each to build, and yet they have endured for decades, and still provide all the comfort of the most modern barracks costing many millions of dollars more today.

The older barracks are an icon of military efficiency and frugality that we could learn real lessons from, even today. We spend billions renovating each military base''s housing every few years, while these older buildings are used for many decades just as they are. The "new" facilities are clearly the more "inferior" ones.

Napoleon once said: "The most important qualification of a soldier is fortitude under fatigue and privation. Courage is only second; hardship, poverty and want are the best school for a soldier."

Shiny new buildings don''t make a better soldier. Toughness makes a better soldier. If they can''t endure a few months in temporary 1950''s style housing, what good will they be on the battlefield, where all they have is a foxhole?

[it_oldtimer]

Those barracks are NOT the "regular" living areas of the 82nd Airborne''s troops. Please see my previous post on this same thread for more info on that.

The 82nd has always kept those older 1950''s barracks (and in excellent repair, I might add) and used them regularly over the years to TEMPORARILY house troops who''s normal billets are undergoing constructural renovation. You certainly can''t stay in your regular barracks during major construction or renovation, of course.

The 82nd Airborne has a limited amount of room on base. They can''t expand outside their existing bounds. Every few years they remodel all the barracks and, as they do, they move the troops in those barracks under construction to these temporary barracks for a little while. When the renovation is finished, they move them back to their normal billets.

This has been going on for over a half century. There is NOTHING wrong with these older barracks (a plugged drain is hardly a major issue, and that occurs even in newly remodeled barracks). I lived in these barracks and I was very comfortable and at home there.

I am ex-military, anti-Bush and anti-war -- but I really think that this is very clearly one case where somebody is trying to make a mountain out of a mole-hill. The older barracks are just fine for temporary use.

Somebody''s daddy needs to take a cold shower and cool off little, and get real. There is nothing unusual or wrong with this situation.

Signed:
"Someone who''s actually been there"

[bequialife]

Meanwhile, in California, we have a freeloading woman on Section 8 housing who just gave birth to her 3rd child and already pregnant with her 4th, was awarded $18,000 to settle her housing discrimination. So she qualified for Section 8, meaning the county subsidizes her rent, so she gets a discount because she can''t afford it. Yet she is having her 4th child.
And we can''t even give our servicemen a decent dorm?? Wow!
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/30/BAI610EGKE.DTL