Army Widens Probe Into Bad Barracks

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

(CBS/AP)  The Secretary of the Army admitted Wednesday the conditions at Fort Bragg in North Carolina are unacceptable - and promised the barracks will be fixed up. As CBS News National Security correspondent David Martin reports, the announcement came after the shoddy conditions were exposed in a video posted on the Internet.

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A YouTube video shows soldiers who spent 15 long, hard, difficult months in some of the most remote dangerous areas of the mountains of Afghanistan.

But when they came home, what they returned to outraged Sgt. Jeff Frawly's father, Ed.

Frawly narrated photos of the conditions his son and the other soldiers from the 82nd Airborne found in their barracks at Fort Bragg.

As for the showers, the YouTube video says: "That dark spot behind the peeled paint is mold. This is right over the head of where the soldiers stand when they take their showers."

And Sgt. Frawley's father was mad as hell.

"Wouldn't you do something if it was your son? Wouldn't you get mad?" he said.

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Watch Frawly's YouTube video here

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Army officials said Tuesday they are inspecting every barracks building worldwide to see whether plumbing and other problems revealed at Fort Bragg are widespread.

Brig. Gen. Dennis Rogers, who is responsible for maintaining barracks throughout the Army, told reporters at the Pentagon that most inspections were done last weekend but he had not seen final results.

While not providing specifics about problems discovered during the weekend inspections, Rogers indicated some deficiencies were corrected. In cases where extensive repairs are deemed necessary, the soldiers in that housing would be moved elsewhere until the fixes are completed, he added.

Rogers said it was too soon to know whether the Fort Bragg problem was an isolated incident. He acknowledged the revelations from the video shot by Frawly showing poor conditions such as mold inside the barracks, peeling interior paint and a bathroom drain plugged with sewage.

Frawly said he was disgusted by the conditions that greeted his son and the rest of his 82nd Airborne unit that returned on April 7-8 after a 15-month tour of duty in Afghanistan.

"We let our soldiers down, and that's not like us," Rogers told reporters. "That's not how we want America's sons and daughters to live. There's no good excuse for what happened."

He said the problems in that building have been fixed and that a final paint job is in the works. It is one of 24 barracks at Fort Bragg that were built in the 1950s and are scheduled for demolition by 2013. The barracks singled out by Frawley had been remodeled in April 2006, Rogers said.

Rogers said the Army's standard procedure is to inspect a barracks building to verify that it meets Army standards before it is occupied by soldiers returning from an overseas deployment. For reasons he was unable to explain, that apparently did not happen in the Fort Bragg incident.

A spokesman for Fort Bragg, Tom McCollum, told the same group of reporters that the post, which is one of the Army's largest with a population of 51,000 soldiers - including more than 12,000 who live on the post - is saddled with 1950s-vintage housing that is not popular with soldiers.

Of the more than 12,000 in barracks at Fort Bragg, about 2,500 are in those built in the 1950s, Army spokesman Paul Boyce said.

"Are soldiers happy with living in the Korean War-era barracks? No," McCollum said. They do not meet the expectations of today's troops, although the Army has done what it can to improve living conditions, McCollum said, speaking by telephone from Fort Bragg.

"Today, no matter how hard we try, we can't put enough lipstick on this pig to make it more pretty," the spokesman said. "So are there soldiers complaining? Yeah." He said they've been complaining for decades.

Some lawmakers are calling for Congress to investigate.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, told The Fayetteville Observer that she has asked the Senate Armed Services Committee to hold a hearing on Fort Bragg and the broader issue of living conditions for returning troops, the paper said on its Web site Tuesday night.

North Carolina holds its presidential primary May 6.

[cantshutup]

In 1990 when my ex was in the military, we lived in an 18 story high-rise in Bischoffsheim, Germany...there were mushrooms growing out of the wall in the hallway outside the bathroom...I took photos and went to housing and said I wanted out of that housing within a month or I was sending the photos to American papers and my congressman...Our move was approved within a week...I also believe I acquired some sort of infection while we lived there, because to this day, I get water blisters on my hands and they swell...All of that started while we were living in the hi-rise...

[bobnjersey]

[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.]
[Posted by IT_Oldtimer at 04:01 AM : May 01, 2008]

are you the new moderator here? should we all think like you ... and use the word ''dweeb''?

[caliguy55]

Given the lunatic we call the "Commander-in-Chief" should we expect any better for the men and women serving our country?

[will_101st]

The Democratic party should go the way of the Whigs

[msntobe1]

I was at those same barracks when I was deployed to the first Gulf War in 1990. Not much has changed.

[johnshaft4]

ANYBODY who joins this military, under the Commander in Chump is a stupid idiot who deserves it.

[prinzowhales]

Lets give Haliburton a no-bid contract to take care of this problem immediately! We need another half-finished shoddily constructed piece of cr*p building like the contractors provided for the Iraqi Police headquarters...or like the hundreds of unfinished projects in Iraq.

At the beginning of this conflict the Army was warehousing wounded troops in dumps at Fort Stewart...then it came out that Walter Reed was the world HQ for the Royal Roach, Rat and Mold Society....now the Army is ''probing''...lying b*stards.

Of course...people intellectually suspect enough to serve the Kissinger-esque figures in the White House who view the military as ''stupid animals who simply serve the foreign policy of the US'' and work in the interests of the enemies of the Republic--Big Oil, Israel and the Opium Interests...should be content to live in cess pits.

[jackknows]

I am thinking that if the barracks are as bad as they say and if the mold is actual and the damage is there. Then the DI''s are not doing their job. What happened to field days? any who have spent basic training know what a field day is, so how did the barracks get in such poor shape.

[ago5675]

If you people don''t mind living like that with the raw sewage and mold, go ahead. But, I am a Soldier''s Mom and with him putting his life on the line to protect and defend our country, he has the right to live like a decent human being. The age of the barracks is not important. The cleanliness and liveability of the rooms is the situation. Not everyone lives like pigs and our brave men and women of the military deserve the very best. The conditions they are sent to are not good, but on US soil, they should be the best we can provide.

[ahrats]

Those who never lived with mold in walls/ceilings do not how harmfull it can be. I''m sure the 2006 renovation just painted over everything. I''m sure the mold growth is due to lack of proper ventilation in the barracks, in 1950 air conditoning of buildings was just starting. Why wait till 2013 to start building new barracks, not in the budget, just add it to the cost of the Iraq war which has an unlimited budget. These people put their life on the line for this country and deserve better.

[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