It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
(visit the link for the full news article)
Published on Friday, April 25, 2008
YouTube video raises concerns about Bragg barracks
By Greg Barnes
Staff writer
spokeswoman for U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole said Dole’s staff is contacting Fort Bragg and Pentagon officials today in response to a just-posted YouTube video that depicts soldiers living in deplorable conditions in a base barracks.
The spokeswoman, Amy Auth, said Dole’s office was unaware of the video until The Fayetteville Observer asked for a response this morning.
Originally posted by jimmyjackblack
Oh please, I've lived in worse, yeah someone should do some repairs, but common, this is a little silly to me.
Pealing paint? Rust? Mold? that's normal living conditions for me, I've lived in apartments that were worse cause I couldn't afford any better, these guy's have it easy compared to what I've went through.
How about waking up with cockroaches crawling all over you, or no heat or air and the landlord won't pay for it to be fixed, flushing the toilet is a gamble cause the piping is screwed up so you have poop sitting in the toilet for weeks, so you have to go to a gasstation to use the bathroom, how about not being able to take a hot shower in the winter and and having to warm up water in a pan over the stove and pouring it in the tub, man I've had it much worse than these guys and it's not that big of a deal to me.
It looked kinda funny that one guy standing in a sink trying to planger the drain lol, millitary folks have no sense of fixing problems.
-Jimmy
Edward Frawley said Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Dick 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 institution."
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.
(CNN's Mary Lynn Ryan)