Outraged Soldiers' Parent Exposes Fort Bragg Living Conditions

YouTube Video Raises Concerns About Fort Bragg Barracks 

Mad as Hell Parent Rages Against Military to Improve Living Conditions

UNREAL!  FORT BRAGG EXPOSED!  UNREAL!   Watch Video Now!

By Greg Barnes

A 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.

"We are certainly looking into it," Auth said, noting that Dole has called for accelerated funding for new Fort Bragg housing. The YouTube video shows paint peeling and falling from exposed pipes in the barracks, mildewed ceilings and showers, a toilet seat torn in half and a soldier standing on a sink trying to unplug a bathroom drain. Sewage appears to cover the bathroom floor.

The video was made by Edward Frawley, the father of a sergeant in the 82nd Airborne Division who returned from Afghanistan on April 13 and is among the soldiers now living in the barracks.

Watch Video: Barracks for Charlie CO 2/508 82n Airborne

"This is unbelievable," Frawley says in the video. "It’s disgusting. It makes me mad as hell. If these buildings were in any city in America and were called apartments, dormitories, they would be condemned."

Tom Earnhardt, a spokesman for the 82nd Airborne Division, declined to comment publicly this morning, but he said the Army would respond later today.

The Army arranged a news conference at 2:30 p.m. today to respond to the video.

Frawley said his son, Sgt. Jeff Frawley, a member of Charlie Company’s 2nd platoon, lived in the remote mountains of Afghanistan near the Pakistan border for most of his deployment. Frawley said his son went eight weeks without a shower and just as long without outside contact.

"These solders spent 15 long, hard, difficult months in some of the most remote, dangerous areas of the mountains of Afghanistan," Frawley says in the video. "They didn’t complain, they just did their job. Now you are going to see what we did for them when they returned home."

This original story was posted at FayObserver.com.  The Staff Writer is Greg Barnes and he can be reached at barnesg@fayobserver.com