A wide-scale inspection conducted earlier this year has revealed that nearly half of US Marine Corps (USMC) barracks have issues.
The inspection, which involved roughly 60,000 rooms around the world, aimed to better understand the state of government housing and nudge leaders to take immediate action.
According to the result, 49 percent of USMC barracks have ventilation and water issues, resulting in mold.
But only 1 percent of that was considered “non-mission capable,” meaning Marines have to be relocated from their rooms.
In total, 118 USMC personnel were moved to a different location because of severe issues found in a total of 97 rooms.
Minor issues have been found in nearly half of the barracks, but they do not necessitate relocation. These include broken door locks and strong musty odors inside the rooms.
An Organizational Failure?
When asked to summarize the assessment on a “pass or fail” basis, USMC Installations Command head Maj. Gen. David Maxwell said he only characterized the results as being “mission capable,” “partially-mission capable,” or “non-mission capable.”
He further said it is difficult to say if the housing conditions are a pass or a failure, given that some rooms only have minor issues and are still “livable.”
“It’s a yes or no question, that’s been interpreted as a pass or fail,” he was quoted as saying. “And I think one of the things that we learned as we walked through was that, ‘Wait a minute, a leaky faucet?’ Yes, it’s a no, but it’s not necessarily … a fail.”
However, a USMC major who was listening to Maxwell said he believes the problem is already an “organizational failure.”
He questioned if anyone has actually been held accountable for the failure to ensure comfortable living conditions for American marines.
But Maxwell refused to call it an organizational failure, saying he did not have the tools to effectively assess and relay to the chain of command the problems with the barracks.
