Marines and Sailors on West Coast Take to Cleaning, Fixing Own Barracks as Money Flows into Housing

U.S. Marines with Headquarters and Service Battalion, 1^st Marine Logistics Group (MLG), show Brigadier General Andrew M. Niebel, the Commanding General of 1^st MLG, how they patch holes in the barracks during Operation Clean Sweep at Camp Pendleton, California, October 16, 2024. (Lance Corporal Deja Rogers/U.S. Marine Corps photo)

Posted: October 23, 2024 --- Military.com | By Drew F. Lawrence

Published October 22, 2024, at 11:00 am

Marines and sailors aboard Camp Pendleton, California, will spend 2 weeks patching drywall, replacing faulty door locks, scrubbing showers and fixing other barracks-related issues as base leadership pours millions of dollars into troop housing at the West Coast installation. On Wednesday, troops began a 2-week, base-wide initiative named "Operation Clean Sweep" to zap nagging barracks issues that have pervaded decades-old military housing in recent years, a measure meant to fix relatively quick projects while units flow cash into big-ticket items such as air conditioning and maintenance backlogs.

As the Marine Corps looks to improve barracks conditions force-wide -- an effort that top service leaders have conceded could take years after decades of dilapidation -- I Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) and Marine Corps Installation-West (MCI-West) are teaming up to fix what they can. "This is not a one and done," Lieutenant Colonel (Lt. Col.) Robert Hillery, an Operations Officer for I MEF's logistics cell, said a phone interview. "This is going to be a new paradigm for us."

The initiative derives from the Corps' Barracks 2030 plan, which seeks to improve housing for junior Marines and sailors who live in unaccompanied housing on post. Service leaders have recognized that after 20 years of the Global War on Terrorism, when resources were allocated to other pressing operational needs, barracks fell by the wayside, leaving thousands of Marines and sailors stuck in poor living conditions.

"Our Marines and sailors deserve better -- they do not ask for much," according to a joint policy from I MEF and MCI-West, which was issued as a precursor to Clean Sweep. "We cannot change the decisions of the past, but we can change the direction of our future. ... Our culture must be defined by accountability, ownership and responsibility, and the degradation of our barracks threatens to erode our culture and, ultimately, our warfighting readiness."

West Coast leadership began planning for improvements at Pendleton in April, Lt. Col. Hillery said. I MEF and MCI-West planners developed a 6-phase project that included educating barracks managers and unit Commanders on the initiative, inspections that coincided with the Corps' recent force-wide check, and now tackling "self-help" issues that Marines, sailors and their leadership are handling on their own.

While this iteration of the plan focuses on Camp Pendleton, it will be implemented at all West Coast installations including Marine Corps Air Stations Yuma and Miramar, as well as Twentynine Palms in the coming months, Hillery said. He also noted that this initiative will become a semi-annual event and that Pendleton units currently on deployment or in training will have leeway in tackling their own cleanup projects, "as long as it is met in a reasonable timeline," Hillery said.

Through the end of this month, Pendleton Marines and sailors will not only be cleaning and repairing issues within their own living spaces but helping with base-level projects that involve pouring concrete, replacing tiles and landscaping. "It has a secondary benefit in that a lot of these Marines and sailors, they're in their late teens to early 20s," Hillery said. "This is the 1^st time they've probably done a lot of this stuff, and so it's teaching them life skills that they'll have for the rest of their life."

Leadership is focusing on "maximizing" self-help projects as it works to untangle larger issues affecting the barracks, Lt. Col. Hillery said, ones that are mostly out of the control of the average Marine or sailor. A portion of the money being spent will go to backlogged maintenance requests, a common complaint among service members who have put in fix tickets for their living spaces but have had them go unattended for weeks or even months. Public works employs tradesmen, electricians, plumbers and other critical jobs that handle higher-level barracks needs as well.

"And so, with this additional money, they got authority to go hire some more," Lt. Col. Hillery said. "But it's a process. It's not overnight ... but over the coming weeks and months, we should see additional capacity for some of our organic technicians." A couple of million dollars will go to installing air-conditioning units in the barracks that will be delivered over the next several months.

Military.com previously reported that some Marines and sailors were languishing in hot barracks as global temperatures reach unprecedented highs. Hillery said that he had "pretty good confidence" that the new air conditioning will be installed before it gets hot again. "The reason a lot of barracks rooms didn't previously have air conditioners is because, when a lot of these facilities were built, it wasn't as hot here -- it just wasn't," Hillery said.

"Some of these barracks were built 40, 50 years ago; it's just gotten hotter over the years, but now that it is where it is now, some of the barrack's rooms do get above what's supposed to be within normal range … and so now that we're over that, it was a priority to get air conditioners." In total, I MEF and MCI-West are pushing upward of $6 million into housing needs. 

"The timing made it a little bit interesting, because it was toward the end of [fiscal 2024, which ended September 30^th], so we had to figure out a solution and get it moving pretty quick," Lt. Col. Hillery said of the budget allocation process. Troops aboard Pendleton can request materials to fix their own rooms now, too. Lt. Col. Hillery said they can put in requests for drywall, tiles, doorknobs and other relatively low-effort projects and pick those materials up at what he called the "self-help warehouse."

He also said that Marines and sailors will be able to provide feedback to leadership through online surveys about how the operation is panning out. "There is a lot of attention on this. A lot of energy, very positive energy," Hillery said. "I've heard multiple Marines and sailors confide in senior enlisted and officers that they appreciate the added attention that we are giving to where they live. Even if we don't make a significant impact in just that 2-week period, it is going to last -- 'Clean Sweep' is just getting this thing off the ground."