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Fort Riley barracks undergoing changes

FORT RILEY, Kan. — Soldiers say their living conditions at Fort Riley are clean, dry and, for the most part, as modern as any apartment complex they could find.

The surroundings have come at a hefty price tag as the Army demolishes older barracks and constructs new ones to upgrade facilities and make room for an expanding 1st Infantry Division.

In Building 411, Staff Sgt. Steve Richard said his only complaint is not having his own thermostat, so he can’t adjust the temperature when it gets cool at night. It’s a minor problem — he uses a sleeping bag on his bed — while he waits for his wife and daughter to join him from Florida so he can move into housing for married soldiers.

The quality of single-soldier housing came to light after the father of an 82nd Airborne Division soldiers discovered poor conditions in barracks at Fort Bragg, N.C.

“I do think [Fort Bragg] is the exception rather than the norm,” Richard said.

A video from Fort Bragg, posted on YouTube, prompted Army officials to order barracks inspections across the service. The video showed mold, peeling paint and broken plumbing fixtures in the Korean War-era barracks.

“I can understand why the father would be furious,” said Rep. Nancy Boyda, a Kansas Democrat. “The guys who are coming home from Iraq shouldn’t have worse conditions than what they had when they were in Iraq.”

At Fort Riley, the Army has spent more than $50 million over the past three years to repair and renovate the 5,808 barrack rooms on post.

An additional 2,950 rooms are planned or under construction in the next seven years, all related to growth from the return of the 1st Infantry Division from Germany in 2006.

Col. Richard Piscal, Fort Riley’s garrison commander — the equivalent of mayor — said the post faces a task like maintaining a residence hall system on a college campus.

“We inspect every set of barracks for our redeploying soldiers to ensure they have top-quality barracks waiting for them,” Piscal said. “We will not put a soldier in any barracks room that we would not want our own sons or daughters living in.”

The barracks at Fort Riley fall into three categories: new, refurbished and destined for replacement.

Among the refurbished is Building 411, a two-story limestone structure on the area known as Main Post. It was built in 1889 when the Army began expanding Fort Riley to house its cavalry school.

The rooms were last renovated in 2004 at a cost of $4.3 million to convert to the Army’s new “1+1” standard of housing. One soldier lives next to one soldier, sharing a common kitchenette and shower area. Larger common areas for laundry, meetings and recreation activities have been carved out of other spaces.

Fort Riley officials were planning to replace an older complex on Custer Hill where most of the single soldiers live and units have headquarters and motor pools. Deployments and an influx of new soldiers have put those plans on hold.

Two buildings built following the Korean War are still used for housing, though the soldiers stay there for a shorter periods. They are soldiers are on their way out of the Army, often for medical or other administrative reasons.

Boyda, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, has Fort Riley and Fort Leavenworth in her 2nd District of eastern Kansas.

In January, she invited Rep. Chet Edwards, a Texas Democrat who chairs the committee overseeing military construction, to tour Fort Riley’s facilities. In her words, they saw “the worst of the worst” — the ones built following the Korean War.

“It was ugly. These are the ones that are being torn down as soon as they can,” Boyda said. “They really aren’t attractive. But they are clean and they are safe.”

The H-shaped, two-story buildings were refurbished in 2005, including new windows and air conditioning units. They stand out on post because of their white exterior and dark, low-ceiling interiors.

Some of the rooms have their own private showers, while others must use a “gang latrine” for showers. Though the fixtures appeared to be dated, they were in working order without visible signs of breakage, rust or corrosion.