The Army plans to make a radical change next month to how it inspects soldiers' living quarters after a long history of troops living in moldy barracks.
Gen. Edward Daly, head of Army Materiel Command, which oversees installations, told Military.com in an interview Thursday that the service plans to take the inspection process out of the hands of soldiers who have minimal training and give it to civilian contractors, starting in September.
The Army is also transitioning to a new internal system to better catalog barracks issues, such as mold, to give commanders improved insight on unhealthy and otherwise unsatisfactory living conditions for soldiers. The planned launch of that system has been about three years in the making.
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“Smoke Bomb Hill, under the old system, was overlooked. When it was addressed, people weren't connecting the dots,” Daly said. “They saw isolated [cases] of mold. This is a systemic problem with the barracks.”
In many cases, barracks inspections are done by soldiers as an extra duty. Inspections may be carried out by a private tasked with looking for a long list of issues — such as inventorying fire extinguishers, noting whether any light bulbs need to be replaced, and ensuring that there's no major damage anywhere.
They are also supposed to alert commanders of major problems such as mold, something the…
You mean the barracks troops have been complaining about for decades? Well done!