It looks like a prison so who would want to break in?

“Gentleman:  We have a serious issue that needs to be addressed and I am not sure who actually has the authority to assist us.”  I wrote to Mr. Ramos late Friday, but the solution that was proposed falls short of correcting the situation.
 
 The top female officer (the DCO, Deputy Commander) has to stay in the regular BOQs because the VIP billets have six rooms and only one bathroom.  So even though she is the #2 top dog she is living like the rest of us.  (The VIP billets are like a converted house with 6 bedrooms along one hall with a bathroom at the end of the hall.  Two toilets, showers and sinks to share among the six occupants.  One living room with a satellite television, a couple of couches, a kitchen and a dining room with laundry facilities.  I actually like my set up better because it has a better heating deal and the block walls are better than the dilapidated doors of the VIP billets.  The furniture is the same era, but they have a refrigerator. 

But the BOQ room the DCO is in isn’t a rehabilitated building like my own, but one deeply in need of repair.  Better than open bay barracks and the female BOQ is at 75% capacity being shared among the whole Brigade.  But still it is a dump. 

And they can’t lock their own room doors and there is only one key for the outside doors so they leave those doors open.  (Our newly renovated rooms have card locks but they don’t quite work as advertised…so we prop one of our doors open so people can get in and out). 

I wrote that email at the direction and behest of the DCO who said everybody should have a lockable door.  And not for reasons indicated below.

(Military Police (or post police) have issued “fix it” tickets to Soldiers who live in these BOQ rooms for having unsecured equipment. We were never informed at the in-briefing of what this violation consists of or that our soldiers could be written up for such a violation.  We also didn't expect that the Military Police would wander through the BOQ to inspect open rooms that we can’t secure.  The ticket read “…secure all your gear in the locker provided…” Yeah.  Like that is even possible.   We conjectured that this problem could easily be solved by providing locking doorknobs to each room and a room key to each building outer door.  Naaaah!  There has to be a better solution.

My email, which I conveniently sent to each of our supervisory units (MOB Brigade, DOL, 166^th, 120^th and the 75^th,) who might be interested parties. I actually addressed the issue like:  “Whoever can help us solve this problem please respond!!  Help!  Piglet!  ME!”

A summary of the issue:

All 9 buildings (except for the three rehabilitated buildings) have inadequate security.  There are some rooms which cannot be secured from the inside and some that can.  Access to the buildings is unimpeded because there is no gate security and anybody can enter the buildings because there is only one key available for the keyed buildings.  The doors can’t be locked so Soldier's property is unsecured; even more unsettling is the female’s don’t have a method to prevent unauthorized access to their buildings while sleeping.  The solution that Mr. Ramos offered was to install door latches inside the rooms.  This does not protect the rooms from property loss and does not provide security inside the hallways and restroom areas.

Being solution oriented for less than $200.00 I could get doorknobs with keys for all occupied rooms in the female billets.  That idea was vetoed.  After much gnashing of teeth and concerned flurries of emails the post agreed to get keys made so every occupant of each building could have a key to the outside door of their building.

But wait!  There is more!  An additional idea to help was to lock the gate to the area from 2100-0500 each day (9 p.m. until 5 a.m.)  That idea was rejected because if your vehicle is inside you can’t get outside.  If you are outside you would have to park outside and go through a pedestrian gate which still allows access.

Today (a week later?) we signed for keys for each exterior door of each BOQ building.  The post insisted that we also sign for a $900.00 lock and chain to secure the gate if we want to.  Weight?  About 40 pounds with massive links.  Wow!
 
So far we have been very satisfied overall with our experience and support from all elements of the NFH establishment (75th, 120th, 166th, DOL and other agencies).  We know the installation is committed to the safety of our soldiers and would sincerely appreciate their attempt at a quick resolution to this issue.

And to demonstrate my own insensitivity to the safety and needs of the officers I actually was thinking that I am just glad we have a place to stay!  I am grateful that in this desolate part of Texas we have a room and a building and my own daughters are probably in so much more danger living in a college dormitory or in a college town than any of our female officers are out here.  The women’s billets across the street which are open bay don’t have locked doors, and they have more male Soldiers running around than you can shake a stick at.  Fortunately I recognize that I am not as sensitive to the unique safety concerns of female officers and a poor judge of relative security risk (does anybody really understand relative risk?) One Army; One Fight!