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It Is A Hill-Billy
posted by Greg @ 12:30 PM
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Richard E. Austin VFW Post 10592 Official blog
Veterans in the Bamberg, Germany Area
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Army has plan for soldiers told to vacate barracks
By Mark St.Clair, Stars and StripesEuropean edition, Friday, January 25, 2008
The Army has come up with a plan to house 17 soldiers from the 2nd Brigade Combat Team’s 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, who were told they had to vacate their barracks rooms this week, Army leaders in Schweinfurt, Germany, said Thursday afternoon.
Maj. Eric Stetson, public affairs officer for the 2nd BCT, said the brigade’s enlisted leadership has a plan to alleviate the problem by moving some soldiers into hotels paid for by U.S. Army Garrison Schweinfurt. Others will move off post into private rental houses until they leave. Still others will move into other barracks.
On Thursday, Stars and Stripes reported that 17 soldiers from Schweinfurt were told they had to leave their barracks rooms because of planned renovations to the building but that the Army had not provided them with other housing arrangements.
When asked why the soldiers would think they had no place to stay only two days before they had to leave their barracks, Stetson said, “at that time [the leadership] may have not had a plan firmed up.”
Nonetheless, the soldiers will not be left out in the cold.
“No one is being asked to move out without a plan of where to put them,” Stetson said Thursday.
As of Thursday morning, the housing issue had not been resolved, according to one of the affected soldiers, Sgt. Joseph Walker. Attempts to reach Walker throughout the rest of the day, however, were unsuccessful.
The 17 soldiers, all from 1-18’s Company B, are set to rotate back to the States on Feb. 18. They are part of a unit that is currently at 135 percent strength, and are just a fraction of the 1,600 soldiers in the community set to leave within the coming weeks.
“We understand and appreciate the frustration on the part of our affected soldiers. We remain committed to helping our soldiers in every way possible to minimize the turbulence from overcrowding that will exist through the first half of February,” the battalion commander, Lt. Col. George Glaze, said in a statement released to Stars and Stripes on Thursday afternoon.
Glaze’s comments, released by the brigade’s public affairs office, continued, “There are challenges ahead of us but the chain of command will remain engaged, at all levels, by our soldiers’ sides overcoming challenges as they arise. We continue (our) mission with a primary focus on the constant care for our soldiers in all manners, whether in combat or in garrison Schweinfurt.”
If, for some reason, Dagger Brigade can’t house all the troops from Company B, one family in Stuttgart has offered to take in two or three of them.
“I’m prepared to pick up the slack if that is required,” said Charles R. Dunn, a retired soldier and employee of defense contractor L3 Communications. “And I don’t know where they have to fly out of, but I’d even get them to the airport if that needs to be done.”
Dunn and his wife, Carol, made a similar offer in July to an Army wife and toddler who for seven weeks were stranded at the Kristall Inn in Vilseck after her husband deployed.
“We’re just trying to do the right thing, soldiers to other soldiers,” Dunn said.
posted by Greg @ 10:47 AM
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Schweinfurt soldiers back from Iraq are facing eviction
By Mark St.Clair, Stars and StripesEuropean edition, Thursday, January 24, 2008
SCHWEINFURT, Germany — They just got back from Iraq, and now they’re being evicted from their homes. Seventeen infantrymen from Company B, 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment who returned from Ramadi, Iraq, in November have been living in barracks normally occupied by soldiers who are currently deployed in Afghanistan. All of the soldiers, who are scheduled to leave Germany next month, said the Army told them they had until Feb. 1 to vacate the barracks. But they found out Tuesday they had have to move out of the rooms Thursday afternoon, according to Sgt. Joseph Walker, 23. When they asked why, the single soldiers were told the rooms they have been living in — in which many of them had phone and Internet service installed — need renovations. According to Walker, their rooms are just fine. In fact, he said, they are better than where they were living before they left for Iraq, with newer furniture and cleaner floors and walls. “Why now? Why can’t it wait?” Walker asked. “We’ll paint our own rooms. We’ll do the hallways. We only need the rooms for another 20 days. Just to work on the hallways alone would take them 20 days.” All the affected soldiers are scheduled to rotate back to the States on Feb. 18. The Army had no plan to house the soldiers after Feb. 1. While not specifically addressing the plight of the 17 soldiers, U.S. Army Garrison Schweinfurt officials acknowledged there is a problem with overcrowding in the community. “The Schweinfurt community has a serious housing problem primarily due to replacements arriving to the brigade even before they were re-deploying from Iraq,” according to a statement from the base public affairs office. Base officials planned to house the soldiers in the barracks until they left. But those buildings “have been identified and funded for flagship money to improve them while the (deployed) soldiers are gone so there was a short window of opportunity to house the (brigade) overflow in these barracks temporarily.” Those barracks now need to be turned over to the contractor to complete the renovations before the troops deployed in Afghanistan return, the statement said. “Currently we have more than 1,000 extra Soldiers in the community. But, this is a short-term problem,” according to the statement. “The stop-loss/stop-move lift will see more than 1,600 Soldiers and families move from the Schweinfurt community to their next duty station over the next several weeks.” The base said all soldiers are being tracked by the brigade senior leadership and all will have a bed and space. “There are rooms available throughout the Schweinfurt community for every Soldier,” according to the statement. “There will be no tents and no one will go without a hot shower or a hot meal.” The Company B soldiers said pleas to their leadership — from their platoon sergeant to their company commander — fell on deaf ears. “We told our commander we were homeless, and he just laughed at us,” Walker said. When they tried to talk to their platoon sergeant, he didn’t seem to care either, he said. The 17 soldiers took their case to the judge advocate general’s office to see if there was legal recourse. They were told there was nothing JAG could do and were sent to the inspector general. When they told the JAG office that IG personnel were nowhere to be found, they were told, “Well, if you find IG, you should let us know where they are.” Apparently, Walker said, IG office personnel vacated Leighton Barracks in Würzburg last week and were supposed to set up shop in Schweinfurt this week. After finding out they had to leave the barracks early, the soldiers contacted members of Congress, family members and lawyers and got one extra day. But, after Friday, there’s no plan — aside from being forced to turn in their keys on Monday. The troops have been looking for buddies who are willing to let them cram three-to-a-room, with perhaps a cot or a mattress on the floor. Walker and his buddies — most of whom are specialists and sergeants in their early 20s — also contacted military support groups. Mary Ann Phillips from Soldiers’ Angels Germany said they offered to pay for a hotel for the soldiers for a week, along with taxi fare to and from post. “We appreciate the help, but right now everyone wants to fight,” Walker said. “None of us are saying, ‘[expletive] the Army.’ We’re all staying in. We all re-enlisted in Iraq. Most of the guys are out in 2012, except three who got stop-lossed, and they deserve to get out if they want to. “We just want the Army to take care of us until we leave. That’s their responsibility … that’s what we enlisted for,” Walker said.
posted by Greg @ 10:45 AM
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