Army Fail

Jim Wright finds all the fail in the Fort Bragg barracks scandal that broke last month. And there’s a ton of fail. For the quick version, for those who missed it: a father, visiting his son on the son’s return from 15 months in Afghanistan, toured the barracks the troops from his 82nd Airborne unit were staying in, and found the conditions beyond deplorable. So he did what any 21st century father would do, he put it up on YouTube and single-handedly shamed the entire Army. Richly deserved, it would seem.

As I mentioned in comments on Jim’s blog, most of the links in his chain of epic fail did not stand for that kind of bullshit in the Marine Corps, at least not in my admittedly limited experience. But as a Reservist we often got leftover housing (when we got it at all), and it was never nearly that inadequate. A broken toilet here, maybe, some paint needed there, but never anything that bad. Sure, we got crammed into squad bays where you could practically snuggle your squad leader in the next bunk if you rolled over in your sleep, but they were clean and well-maintained squad bays for the most part. And we always left places cleaner than when we arrived.

And yes, we even cleaned our rooms in Iraq, and had weekly inspections every Wednesday or Thursday (can’t remember, it all blurred together). If we had been going through that in a peacetime, stateside situation, it would have meant the difference between getting liberty for the weekend and not. Kind of a cruel joke in 24/7-land, but really, no less important when you get down to it.

Anyway, as Jim says, a complete failure, top to bottom. And, personally, I don’t think the age of the barracks is any real excuse. There’s a lot that could have been done to remedy those barracks that would have cost little more than the sweat of some garrison troopers or hard labor convicts from the brig.

In other dumb Army news, the Army has pulled a Silver Star recipient out of combat because of the “no females in combat” reg.

Ahahaha. Hahaha. Hahahahahahaha. Ahhhh.

Yeah, news flash to US military leadership, that concept went out the window when we invaded Iraq. Time to revisit and, in all probability, dismantle it. The only reasons left are sentimental ones. That genie was effectively let out of the bottle when we “went to war with the Army we’ve got,” which relies too heavily on our sisters in uniform for them to be realistically shielded from combat, especially when it gets all 360-degree and asymmetrical.

Crossposted with klech.net