http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/0 ... ex.html?hp

A father’s outrage, channeled onto YouTube, is providing a dark exception to the kind of fanfare and joy that is now greeting soldiers during Fleet Week in Florida. From ABC News:

When Edward Frawley went to welcome home his 22-year-old son, who was returning from a tour of duty with the 82nd Airborne Division in the mountains of Afghanistan, he was in for a shock.

Not to hear the stories about Jeff’s battles with insurgents, but to witness his son’s current living conditions at Fort Bragg, N.C.

The decidedly unwelcoming situation included moldy walls, a bathroom apparently flooded with sewage, uncapped sewage pipes and peeling paint. In short, the kind of violations that would warrant a slew of complaints to the landlord and possibly worse.

Or in Mr. Frawley’s case, a YouTube exposé. A 10-minute video combined photographs of the offenses with a steely narration — a thoughtful production mixed with Internet rant. “If these buildings were in any city in America and were called apartments, dormitories, they would be condemned,” he said at one point. Here’s the clip, which was published on April 22:

The YouTube route worked, and quickly. Senator Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina said that the condition of the barracks, which hold about 100 troops, was “wholly unacceptable and it must be immediately corrected.” She also put in a call to the Army secretary, The Fay Observer said.

On Friday, just three days after the YouTube clip emerged, the Army responded to the claims. According to the Observer, an Army spokesman “did not try to sugarcoat” the conditions, but he also said that repairs were scheduled to finish before the soldiers returned. But their Afghanistan tour ended three weeks earlier than expected.

In any case, an Observer reporter said that many repairs had been made by Friday, including $17,000 in new furniture. But the military is refusing to help cover the cost of private housing for troops who would like to live elsewhere until the job is done.

Mr. Frawley remains displeased with the situation while “hoping no one gets fired.” Summing up his utterly straightforward campaign thus far, he told CNN, “I just want to see it get fixed.”

Oh man, I should have taken videos of my living quarters on Fort Leonard Wood or Fort Hood, way worse than that in many ways. The place they had us packed in at Camp Lejeune was no picnic either...

From what I understand, the Marine guard in DC has some of the worst accomodations, seeing as how the buildings are 200+ years old.