OK, it’s my turn. Everyone else has had their say on this, and I’ve been stewing about it since I first saw the video last week (or it seems like it was last week, anyway). If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s the video;<\/p>\n
[youtube B4P-camUjjk nolink]<\/p>\n
Nearly everyone has said that somehow it’s Bush’s fault, or those pencil-necks in the Pentagon, that the troops return from war to such squalor. It’s an uncaring government that warehouses it’s elite fighting force in such filth. The same ignorance I heard when the Washington Post went after Walter Reed (a story for which they earned a Pulitzer Prize because they nailed some brass to the wall and got them fired). Actually, this story is just exactly like the Walter Reed story. It’s not the fault of Army brass, no matter how, nor who, wants to point their fingers at some three-star.<\/p>\n
The Army long ago decided that they’d have civilian contractors called facility engineers who maintained their buildings. The individual soldiers would report leaks, damage, electric problems to their noncommissioned officer chain-of-command, who would, in turn, submit work orders to fix those things. The civilian lazy-ass facility engineers would then fix the problem in their own sweet time. How does an NCO ride herd on pogue-ass civilians? Usually with favors, never with the usual flair and aplomb of a combat arms NCO, though, piss off a facility engineer and your barracks will fall down around your ears.<\/p>\n
Now the system breaks down when soldiers actually deploy and there is no one to report deficiencies. Actually, for the facility engineers it means a good time of sitting around the shop complaining there’s nothing to do. There’s a system in place wherein facility engineers inspect the empty barracks periodically – the only check on them is that they have to initial an inspection checklist- easily accomplished from anywhere in the world without actually looking at the barracks.<\/p>\n
Looking at the video, one thing in it makes me think this isn’t the fault of anyone in the chain-of-command. The broken toilet seat. It didn’t break all by itself, soldiers had to present when it broke meaning that it must’ve been reported. No NCO would let something like that go unreported, especially an NCO in America’s Guard of Honor. Unless the seat broke after the deployment – which means a civilian employee had to have been present when it broke, and since they’re the guys who fix that stuff, it should have been fixed immediately.<\/p>\n