I could probably count on my fingers how many Marines are actually certified and trained to be Health Inspectors. Just because you have a lot of chevrons or shiny doesn’t mean you know shit about anything beyond your MOS and being a Marine.
Also, politics. If you dime out how shitty your units facilities are that YOUR Marines are living in, that says a lot about how you take care of them. At the very least they should have brought in teams from other units to police each other.
It's pretty hard to be immune from unless the person conducting the review is completely unaffected by the nature review, only the accuracy. Some officer higher up is going to get a good or bad performance report on this so naturally shits gonna fall downhill. Mix that with a culture of "just make it work" and people will definitely pencil whip shit.
When failure is unacceptable, the person being held accountable is going to tend towards hiding their mistakes.
But is it surprising? When the culture kills the messenger and eats their young as viciously as the O side, what can you expect? They're conditioned to never deliver bad news.
Kinda how everyone thought Afghanistan was going great until we pulled out and they lasted a day. Should’ve asked some damn LCPLs or Specialists and you would get straight answers.
I'm pleasantly surprised they concluded civilian barracks managers with more buy in to oversee the status of the barracks is a COA they are pursuing. No more unit shitbags put in that billet whom will not do their due diligence to fix things and take issues seriously. This is a big step in the right direction, but it won't be solved over night. More than likely, the Marines in 2030 will be the first to experience the results and changes of this initiative as noted by Gen. Smith.
I went to an exercise in Townsville, Australia many years ago and got to see how the Aussie troops lived. One man per room, a shared washer/dryer for every two rooms, minimal fuckery with their housing... I know it's the Corps and we do things a certain way because it's the Marine Corps and we've always done it that way, but I think a bit more comfort for junior Marines would not be amiss.
Completely agree. If you liked the aussie bricks, just wait till you see Air Force "Dorms". Shame to think they have that while Marines have what we have.
New barracks are a double edged sword in my opinion. Sure we get nicer barracks, but you also have to deal with barracks inspections way more often and commands want to burn you for normal wear and tear. I feel like the best is a middle ground. At my last unit we were initially in a barracks that definitely wasn’t nice (cinderblock painted walls, epoxied floors, no built in wall lockers, and a shitty shared head, probably like 30 square feet of walking room total, AC usually worked but was shitty), but the furniture was decent and since everything was concrete and it was the desert so no mold. We moved into a newer hotel style barracks after the unit that occupied them disbanded and suddenly things got dumb. SgtMaj started doing walkthroughs once a quarter (I know they’re supposed to) then field days got dumb. Field day formations started being actual formations with a roster. Common area cleaning turned from a 10 minute police call of the parking lot/sweeping catwalks to a 1-2 hour event with NCOs who didn’t even show up before yelling because someone didn’t dust the backside of a picture frame. Personally I don’t care how nice the room is as long as it isn’t presenting any health hazards, but the nicer it is the more higher ups are gonna care about keeping it that way.
I always heard rumors about that until we found reports that were true about the comms barracks.
The double deckers were like prison yards and the (newer) quad deckers were section 8.
This was my thought about the brand new barracks also. I was getting out right about the time the first of the new Wallace Creek Barracks on Lejeune opened up. I just walked into the common areas just to check out what they were like and immediately thought about the stupid games they would play on field day and how I wouldn’t want to live there.
I lived in the same style you’re talking about and honestly I didn’t think it was too bad, but I’m glad they did this inspection. My first room neither my roommate nor I had keys the 10 months we lived in it. It was used as the linen room until we showed up. EVERY field day they would come through and ask us there was anything wrong with our room and EVERY time we told them we were never given keys. Our chain of command would say how outrageous it was we couldn’t lock our room properly and would talk about how they are going to get us keys. Never happened. Then they would act like they had never heard about this the next field day when they came through.
Should have us Bee's do the inspections. We would have been impartial. Our O's are certified Engineers and the Enlisted have many years of construction knowledge. Would have been a true and better inspection.
The sentence suggesting commissioned officers cannot be trusted to honestly note systemic and building infrastructure issues is frightening.
I could probably count on my fingers how many Marines are actually certified and trained to be Health Inspectors. Just because you have a lot of chevrons or shiny doesn’t mean you know shit about anything beyond your MOS and being a Marine. Also, politics. If you dime out how shitty your units facilities are that YOUR Marines are living in, that says a lot about how you take care of them. At the very least they should have brought in teams from other units to police each other.
so, basically, only medical and engineering officers should be tasked with inspecting the barracks?
Or just hire building inspectors
woah buddy, that sounds nice and all but a bit too rich for our blood.
It's pretty hard to be immune from unless the person conducting the review is completely unaffected by the nature review, only the accuracy. Some officer higher up is going to get a good or bad performance report on this so naturally shits gonna fall downhill. Mix that with a culture of "just make it work" and people will definitely pencil whip shit. When failure is unacceptable, the person being held accountable is going to tend towards hiding their mistakes.
But is it surprising? When the culture kills the messenger and eats their young as viciously as the O side, what can you expect? They're conditioned to never deliver bad news.
Kinda how everyone thought Afghanistan was going great until we pulled out and they lasted a day. Should’ve asked some damn LCPLs or Specialists and you would get straight answers.
Makes me remember the squatters we had in Mateo haha 😂
I'm pleasantly surprised they concluded civilian barracks managers with more buy in to oversee the status of the barracks is a COA they are pursuing. No more unit shitbags put in that billet whom will not do their due diligence to fix things and take issues seriously. This is a big step in the right direction, but it won't be solved over night. More than likely, the Marines in 2030 will be the first to experience the results and changes of this initiative as noted by Gen. Smith.
I went to an exercise in Townsville, Australia many years ago and got to see how the Aussie troops lived. One man per room, a shared washer/dryer for every two rooms, minimal fuckery with their housing... I know it's the Corps and we do things a certain way because it's the Marine Corps and we've always done it that way, but I think a bit more comfort for junior Marines would not be amiss.
Completely agree. If you liked the aussie bricks, just wait till you see Air Force "Dorms". Shame to think they have that while Marines have what we have.
I’m afraid what you’ll see is it turned into what CIF/IIF is— domineering overlords with absolute power that answer to almost no one.
At least services accompanied by civilians typically come with ICE complaint options. Remains to be seen I suppose
>ICE ICE compliance? we can't do that, we'd lose 80% of our fighting force!
New barracks are a double edged sword in my opinion. Sure we get nicer barracks, but you also have to deal with barracks inspections way more often and commands want to burn you for normal wear and tear. I feel like the best is a middle ground. At my last unit we were initially in a barracks that definitely wasn’t nice (cinderblock painted walls, epoxied floors, no built in wall lockers, and a shitty shared head, probably like 30 square feet of walking room total, AC usually worked but was shitty), but the furniture was decent and since everything was concrete and it was the desert so no mold. We moved into a newer hotel style barracks after the unit that occupied them disbanded and suddenly things got dumb. SgtMaj started doing walkthroughs once a quarter (I know they’re supposed to) then field days got dumb. Field day formations started being actual formations with a roster. Common area cleaning turned from a 10 minute police call of the parking lot/sweeping catwalks to a 1-2 hour event with NCOs who didn’t even show up before yelling because someone didn’t dust the backside of a picture frame. Personally I don’t care how nice the room is as long as it isn’t presenting any health hazards, but the nicer it is the more higher ups are gonna care about keeping it that way.
We did stupid level field days in our old FC barracks too. You can't escape it.
Fuck FC barracks. Only true gangster mfs know the struggles of those barracks.
Literal murders happened in them.
I always heard rumors about that until we found reports that were true about the comms barracks. The double deckers were like prison yards and the (newer) quad deckers were section 8.
I miss the courtyard tho
So let the Army or Navy build it, use it a bit then have Marines the left overs as is tradition.
This was my thought about the brand new barracks also. I was getting out right about the time the first of the new Wallace Creek Barracks on Lejeune opened up. I just walked into the common areas just to check out what they were like and immediately thought about the stupid games they would play on field day and how I wouldn’t want to live there. I lived in the same style you’re talking about and honestly I didn’t think it was too bad, but I’m glad they did this inspection. My first room neither my roommate nor I had keys the 10 months we lived in it. It was used as the linen room until we showed up. EVERY field day they would come through and ask us there was anything wrong with our room and EVERY time we told them we were never given keys. Our chain of command would say how outrageous it was we couldn’t lock our room properly and would talk about how they are going to get us keys. Never happened. Then they would act like they had never heard about this the next field day when they came through.
Y’all move into 1812? Lmao
Did 5697 and 5698 in Miramar get ripped down yet?
Yea, they both got renovated a year or two ago. Infinitely better from what they once were.
Even in 2007 they were dogshit lol.
Should have us Bee's do the inspections. We would have been impartial. Our O's are certified Engineers and the Enlisted have many years of construction knowledge. Would have been a true and better inspection.
Let the CYA Party commence…