Ft. Bragg

[balli]

Disgusting and shameful. This should not be. Watch the vid and then call your congressional reps.

[SAGambler]

BAH....How the can we afford to do that for our soldiers? There are too many crack s, drug users, criminals, and career welfare families to take care of first.

And then we have to come up with things like millions for the salmon in Oregon, or the peanut farmers in Geogia, or to save some salamander in Texas. A few million here and a few more million there, and there just isn't anything left for the people we ask to "do our dirty work" for us.

The whole damn political system is corrupt. They speak out of both sides of their mouths. And as along as they are allowed to get away with it, our soldiers can look forward to more of the same.

[JoeChalupa]

We can rebuild hospitals in Iraq but can't do it for our veterans?
And stop the damn ing..
You do realize that some of those crack s, drug users, criminals, and career welfare families are veterans too don't you?

[clambake]

i'm gonna go repub here and say " them. our country would be better off if they were dead".

i'm starting to get this elephant thing.

[Nbadan]

Here is some followup...

Edward Frawley said Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Cody called him on Monday to say that he shared his anger and that there was no excuse for soldiers living in such conditions.

"He talked to me for 30 minutes, and I believe what he said," Frawley told "American Morning." "He said he wouldn't want his sons coming back and going into these kinds of living conditions, and he just said somebody dropped the ball and they're going to fix it."

Frawley said the Army had promised to have new barracks ready when his son's unit, part of the 82nd Airborne Division, returned from Afghanistan.

"The conditions depicted in Mr. Frawley's video are appalling and unacceptable, and we are addressing the concerns he expressed," Maj. Tom Earnhardt, spokesman for the 82nd Airborne, said in a written statement.

"Our paratroopers are our most valuable resource, and our commitment is to their well-being. Our actions now must represent the best we can do for our soldiers."

He added, "Fundamentally, we acknowledge these conditions are not adequate by today's standards. The images in Mr. Frawley's video are alarming, and our soldiers deserve the best conditions we can provide as an ins ution."

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina is among government officials who have responded to the video. In a written statement, she called living conditions in the barracks "unacceptable" and said the situation "must be immediately corrected."

A group of congressional staffers toured Fort Bragg on Tuesday.

Earnhardt told CNN the building had been mostly unused during the 15 months Sgt. Frawley and his unit were away. Fort Bragg has a massive construction project under way to create new housing, but it is behind schedule, Earnhardt said. Video Watch what the Army is building for soldiers »

He told CNN on Tuesday that there were 40 work orders on the barracks before the video was made, and only seven of them were incomplete when the pictures were taken. Most repairs have since been made, Earnhardt said, and soldiers are housed in the barracks.

Edward Frawley told CNN on Tuesday that the Army has "done a lot in the last two weeks" to fix up the barracks.
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"My son is in a tough situation because he wants to make the military his career," he said. "Gen. Cody and the colonels ... guaranteed me this wouldn't come back on him. He had nothing to do with it.

"[Cody] agrees that the pictures are accurate. He doesn't want his men living in conditions like that. ... Who wants their sons living in that?" E-mail to a friend E-mail to a friend

Cnn

and...

FORT BRAGG, N.C. (AP) — The secretary of the Army said Wednesday the poor condition of Korean War-era barracks at Fort Bragg is unacceptable.

Army Secretary Pete Geren said improvements are coming, but some of the problems can't be fixed quickly. He made the remarks after meeting with soldiers and touring Fort Bragg's 82nd Airborne Division barracks.

The visit came after the father of a paratrooper posted a video online showing mold inside the barracks, peeling interior paint and a bathroom drain plugged with sewage. By Wednesday, the barracks had new paint and water fountains were fixed, but work crews still labored on the plumbing.

"Everybody on this installation knows that the conditions were unacceptable. Every soldier deserves a quality of life equal to his service," Geren said.

Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., urged the Defense Department on Wednesday to look into the Bragg conditions. It was one of Feingold's cons uents, Ed Frawley of Menomonie, Wis., who posted the video. Frawley said he was disgusted by conditions that greeted his son, Sgt. Jeff Frawley, and other members of his company when they returned this month after a 15-month tour of duty in Afghanistan.

Army officials have said they have inspected every barracks building worldwide to see whether plumbing and other problems revealed at Fort Bragg are widespread. The inspection was launched after the video was posted.

The barracks like the one in the video were built in the 1950s and will still be needed while Fort Bragg constructs new ones, Geren said.

"We have old barracks with needs, but it is nothing that can be fixed overnight," he said. "We're going to make sure all the installations have the requirements they need."

AP

So the wheels to improvement are moving, thanks largely to the outrage by everyone who has seen this video and especially Elizabeth Dole and Senator Feingold, but improvments aren't happening fast enough, for now soldier continue to live in these deplorable condition until new barracks are completed at Ft Bragg (an ironic name for the Army)...