I've been retired for almost a quarter century but I still get a kick out of the "new" stuff that pops up in my feed. UNACCOMPANIED HOUSING GUARANTEES AND RESPONSIBILITIES > United States Marine Corps Flagship > Messages Display The description of the barracks as I read through the latest Marine Corps Order on unaccompanied housing sounds like it could just as well be in the 200 area of Montford Point or in the WWIi era barracks at Fort Pickett or Camp Lejeune. What all these barracks had in common was that they were traditional squad bay layout. Montford Point was the only one where the head was in a separate building at the end of the Company Street. Fun in the winter! This one is a National Historic Site now. A head. How about that. Imagine running down the street in the pre-dawn darkness in a towel and flip flops...in January. The divider is wider in the 200 Area, but the layout is the same. (I remember, because I slept on top of one of those dividers while on two-man guard duty. Falling off could be dangerous) Sinks are on the other side of the low wall. No mirrors, you should be able to shave your face without one, or use the little metal one in your shaving kit. Looking down the Company Street aboard Montford Point. Camp Geiger had the same layout. My barracks at the end of Company Street C is nothing but grass now, but I'll never forget it. It was the closest to a mess hall as I ever managed to live. The only three man rooms were for Sergeant's and there were usually only two to four of them. Everybody else got a perfectly functional rack, wall locker and foot locker. You tied your laundry bag to the end of the rack and a towel and wash cloth that you never used had your name stamped on it. Your shoes and boots were lined up neatly under your rack, which was made, unless you were sleeping in it. WWII 'A' barracks. Looks the same stick for stick at bases and camps all over the country. I was a Sergeant when I lived in these barracks at Fort Pickett. I was attached to Second Tank Battalion to keep their guns moving. These were originally coal heated, and had unbreakable polished metal mirrors in the head. We had strict segregation. No, not like that. We had the NCO's in a separate area from the non-rates. At Pickett NCO's lived upstairs, at Lejeune and Montford Point there was a barrier of wall lockers and a sheet for a door. You had to have permission to enter NCO Country and when your business was done you got out. We had few discipline problems in the barracks. If we did they didn't last long. Common areas are spotless and well maintained. They keep morale high, because the alternative to communal showers and a row of undivided shitters is helmet and wash cloth and a slit trench. Washing machines and dryers are heaven compared to a wash tub, scrub brush and clothes line. The TV room is where you meet to socialize. It's spotless too, because you and the fellow residents keep it that way. You even mow the grass and paint the rocks outside. The Police Sergeant takes care of assignments to these duties and makes sure you have all the tools you need. Meals are served three times a day. After morning, noon, and evening formations you'll march to chow so nobody misses a meal. And with all that luxury you still get paid every two weeks. I remember I used to make $412 a month. That's before taxes. I didn't know what to do with all that money, so I took Dad's advice and enjoyed travel, good food and good drink with good company. Never brought home anything I didn't intend to and for many years never owned more stuff than would fit in my sea bag. We had little privacy in the squad bay, and if somebody was upset everybody would see it and after poking fun at the poor soul for a bit, would band together to find a solution. If anybody had a drinking problem we all knew about it and would join them at the club to keep them out of trouble. We had comaraderie. It was more important to those of us who had always lived in squad bays than any bit of privacy. It seemed perfectly natural to us to share a newspaper while sitting on adjacent shitters, or pass around a roll of toilet paper. Years later, when we came back to the States and got assigned rooms we had stuff we never had to deal with, or had quickly dealt with in the squad bay. Hygiene issues, drugs, depression, suicide, theft, and unauthorized absence. This new order sounds a lot like something the Company Gunny might say. He'd keep it short, and memorable. In the end it would have exactly the same impact. "We never promised you a rose garden." Semper Fi
Wow those pictures bring back memories of my basic training at the WWII reactivated base at Amarillo TX in 1968 old wooded barracks, gang showers and toilets lined up against the wall - no such thing as privacy
We do it WAY different in the Air Force! Think Fed. Prison, only with better food! I did Basic in the "Old" Squares, which was actually better then the kiddies today, we were close to everything, so our D.I's had to take us "Round the Block" a few times to get the proper exercise in! This was my Barracks, basically, you have 8 individual barracks in ONE building, and you had Squadron H.Q. at one corner of the bottom floor, and Mess took up the other 3/4 of that! Note, the "Living Space" is above ground level, Lemme tell ya, Huracán season in San Antonio is NO JOKE! There is NO common space in the middle like the later buildings, so everything outside is done away from the buildings! Here is a slightly better view, you get a better idea of just how massive these barracks are! Keep in mind, each "Elbow" of the building is 4 barracks, and there are 4 elbows to each building! here is the newer setup, much more centralized and much more modern, but one hell of a zoo, super easy to get turned around if your not paying attention! And the inside of our of our two bays! These hold 60 Airmen Basic, Plus the D.I.s office/squad leaders bunk and the Head/shower room at the back of this photo, along with the stairwell and watch standers post/security door! My Barracks was the top floor, so maximum stairs, the female barracks was kitty corner from ours, the only one of the entire building, 60 Female Airman total! This was our Chow Hall, back is to the Elevated "Snake Pit", food lines to the right just off camera. Think one of those cheap all you can eat buffets ( only not all you can eat) and that was what we had in Basic! We had to eat in two shifts, given our numbers was double the chow halls capacity! Remember, each Barracks building block was like this, had it's own chow hall on the ground floor! The Big assed buildings with 16 training squadrons EACH were enormous, could feed over 2000 airmen at a time!
I spent a little time on Camp Johnson after Boot Camp ,, and I remember them cold ass walks to the head , then went to Camp Gieger ,, and lived in the squad bays , 3 racks , 6 beds , wall lockers dividing the bays ,, and the old green wool blankets seperating the NCO areas . Even when I went to Mainside,, to finish out my tour ,, I was put in a squad bay,, never had one of them 2 or 3 man rooms . To me ,, the squad bays was the way to go ,, I had friends on Mainside when I was on Gieger , they had the 3 man rooms , and when I went to visit them ,, it just didn't feel right ,, I agree with you HD ,, the squad bays made for a tighter group of guys . Short story here ,,, I was sent to mainside to finish out my enlistment . Was there for maybe 2 months before EAS . The squad bay was mainly full of short timers ,, with a few newbies mixed in . This squad bay wasn't even set up with the wall locker dividers ,, it was boot camp rack rows . One morning at reveille,, one guy jumps out of the rack at 0600 ,,, headed to the head ,, starts yelling ,,, " 3 days and a wakeup M'FKRS ,,, a short timer Sargent tells the guy ,, " hey man , don't be saying stuff like that ,, we have new guys in here ,, and we don't want to give them a bad attitude . Right after that ,, the 1st Sargent comes out of his office and says ,, " 21 DAYS AND A WAKE UP M'FKRS " ,,, As much as I disliked them squad bays at times ,, they were the best things for the Corps ,, it made everyone equal ,, and tighter . SEMPER FI , M'FKRS
When I left the Marine Detachment at Aberdeen Proving Grounds I asked the orders clerk if he could send me North. He did his best. I was hoping for Alaska. I ended up in Quantico, Va. I checked in and they didn't know what to do with me. They rated one Marine of my MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) and they had three. I was attached to Headquarters Company and assigned to Special Services as an assistant harbor master at the Quantico Boat Docks. It was great duty, but my barracks situation was quite unique. I lived in a squad bay by myself. All alone. Nobody even lived on the same deck of the barracks as I did. I had a wall locker and a rack that had been moved into the empty squad bay for me. I set it up boot camp style, got settled and did my best to keep the place clean. After a couple months this was a perfect circle of dust, swept out away from my rack and wall locker and a neat path to the head. I wasn't going to clean any more of the empty barracks, but my area was clean. I remember sitting in an open window looking out at Q-town drinking a beer. My uniform was a red Special Services T-shirt and red PT shorts. Most days I took the chase boat up and down the Potomac to check the other Marine Corps base docks. When it was slow I did fiberglass repair on our Lightning sailboats. I was there for a few months and wondered if the Marine Corps had forgotten me. Until one day I get called to the Headquarters Company Office. The Admin Chief says, "We're shutting down the sailboat rentals at the boat docks for the winter, and you're being transferred to the campground at Lunga Reservoir." I repaired Sunfish sailboats and canoes there. I did campground maintenance and rescued a little feral kid that had his arm stuck up a soda machine. He'd been there for a day or two from the looks and smell of him. I learned to sail the Sunfish, got certified to be an instructor. I learned that tube tops don't stay up when wet. There was lots of strange stuff going on there. I need to write some memories down from that time in my Stories thread. I was happy to get orders to Weapons Training Battalion and become a marksmanship instructor. We had open squad bays there, and after I busted up my back I spent a week stripping the tile floor in the rec room with a razor scraper on my knees or scooting on my ass. I found the most beautiful black marbled tile under a quarter inch of built up wax. It became a labor of love, and by the time it was done I was very pleased, even if everybody else hated me. (Because now they were expected to match my Johnson Paste Wax shine. I wouldn't actually serve in my actual MOS for several more months. Great duty at the range.
During my Navy training in 1980/81, I spent a couple weeks in one of those, while in transient status between schools. I hated it. My first hitch was Airforce, so I was used to something more civilised. Most of my Navy time though was in the huge three-story concrete buildings, four wings around a central courtyard. In my Airforce days at Tyndall AFB, Fl. (76-80) I was in a one-story wood ranch-style barracks, two guys per room except for E4s getting singles. Communal bathrooms, thankgoodness the shitters were private. Later they built new barracks, we called the "Holiday Inn", as it looked like one. Each room had it's own bathroom. I never got assigned to it though. Years later I read the Holiday Inn barracks were being considered as "inadequate". Crap, it seemed plenty nice to me! Airforce was getting spoiled by 1979.
You and every other Marine will always have my respect, @hot diggity . Being Navy myself, we tend to send jabs at each other's service branches....but when the chips are down, there's no one I'd rather have on my side, than a leatherneck! My buddy enlisted in the Corps, around the same time I enlisted in the Navy. His recruiter once asked me if I wanted to go in with Dan, under the buddy program? I smiled, thanked him for his confidence, then told him I didn't have the correct mentality to be a Marine! He smiled back, then laughed, and said, "Fair enough!"
