Army OKs $248M in Barracks Repairs

Army Secretary Pete Geren said May 7 that the Army has appropriated $248 million in emergency funds to fix problems found during inspections of 148,000 rooms at bases worldwide over the past two weeks.

"We ordered a look at literally every single room," Geren said. "We didn't find any looming danger to their health and safety." Geren made his comments at Fort Bragg, N.C., which became the flash point for the Army's latest move to upgrade the conditions of its old barracks after a Soldier's video of his run-down barracks ended up on YouTube.

The Army aims to have new or renovated barracks housing for 147,700 enlisted Soldiers within five years, according to Ned Christensen, chief of public affairs for the Army Installation Management Command. The Army doesn't have a total for all its barracks spending, but Christensen estimated that between 2004 and 2013, the construction cost for new barracks complexes will amount to $10.7 billion.

The Pentagon also gives troops more financial incentive to rent or buy housing in communities near their base rather than stay on base. Monthly allowances that vary according to a Soldier's location, rank and dependents have been increased substantially in recent years.

But for those living on base, the conditions can be grim, and military leaders concede the housing situation as a whole is deplorable despite the millions spent over the decades to gut, retrofit and renovate the old structures.

A spot check by Associated Press reporters over the past week found many barracks plagued by recurring problems with mold, mildew and their plumbing and wiring.

In many cases, the cramped, wooden units were scheduled for destruction, but Army leaders facing space and economic constraints from the war in Iraq have again filled the old barracks. Major installations like Fort Campbell, Ky., and Fort Stewart, Ga., report pumping more than $100 million into barracks improvements in recent years to make room for the flood of recruits and brigades.

Still, military leaders concede the housing situation as a whole is deplorable despite the millions spent over the decades to gut, retrofit and renovate the old structures.

In 1994, the Army launched a barracks modernization program to replace all its oldest housing. The plan was to be completed this year, but that has been postponed to 2013 because of other needs, including a multiyear redesign of the way Army brigades - the main fighting units - are equipped and organized for war.

At Fort Stewart, the combination of a new combat brigade and ongoing construction has some Soldiers sleeping and eating in large trailers until new barracks are built.

Brig. Gen. Dennis Rogers, who is responsible for maintaining Army housing, said last week that besides poor physical condition, the old barracks offer too little privacy to meet the expectations of today's younger generation.

It was a frequent complaint from Soldiers who talked to the AP, including Spc. Kaila Colvin, who said she's looking forward to getting married in part because she won't have to live in Fort Campbell's barracks anymore.

"Privacy-wise, you can't hide anything," Colvin said. "It's definitely cramped."

About a third of Fort Campbell's single Soldier barracks - serving some 3,300 Soldiers - house two Soldiers to a room. The 46 Soldiers on each floor have to share two large bathroom facilities.

"It's kind of a pain," Colvin said. "There are only four showerheads in the bathroom."

Other Soldiers are bothered by the buildup of grime.

Pvt. Chris Daugherty, a Guardsman from Shreveport, La., says no amount of cleaning could keep his Fort Knox barracks spotless.

"It was cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, but no matter how much you clean, the barracks have been used by so many privates that as far as the air ducts and the air systems, you can't get it totally clean," Daugherty said.

The base is replacing heating and air conditioning systems to decrease mold in showers and living quarters.

Soldiers at Fort McCoy, a sprawling World War II-era base in western Wisconsin now used for short-term Guard and Reserve training, stay in two-story wooden barracks dating to 1942. Fewer than half of the 276 barracks have been renovated or modernized.

Spc. Loren Dauterman, who trained at Fort McCoy last month with the National Guard, found something good to say about the falling-apart floors and ceilings in her quarters.

 Barely.

"It is better than sleeping out in the woods," Dauterman said last week, "but not a whole lot better."

Guard Master Sgt. Patrick Robinson, 55, of Wausau, Wis., saw peeling paint, missing floor tiles and clogged shower drains during his many training missions at the base. "You couldn't pay me to go into the shower rooms without shower shoes on," he said.

A few years ago Robinson, 55, refused to sleep in the barracks after opening a window and getting dead flies blown onto his bed. In 2006, he returned from Iraq to moldy barracks he said looked like a "pigsty."

Dauterman said she never complained about the Fort McCoy conditions. "We are in the Army and we accept many things about it. We are just accustomed to it," she said.

The Wisconsin Guard Soldiers' commander, Col. Hillis Tinglum, said the barracks are acceptable given the short nature of training stays there. Compared with the conditions Soldiers encounter in the Middle East, "We have nothing to complain about in staying in barracks like these," Tinglum said.

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