NC - Investigating Infant Deaths At Ft Bragg 9/1/10

[chemcopout]

have they tested the houses or areas the babies were subjected to for different molds? as a soldiergrits mentioned, they had mold.
i know that certain molds could grow and would be very dangerous, especially to ones with compromised respiratory systems, babies.
what was the common denominator with the 12 babies?

also makes me curious as to the autism rate in that specific area for children and babies that grew up in the same housing.

obviously the military won't admit their housing is horrible and they claim it has nothing to do with the deaths.
even if they are hiring private contractors to take over the housing as kat said, they should at the very least make sure our soldiers who give their lives and risk them for our country are being housed in safe living conditions.

"Though the military can't say what killed the children, it is confident what didn't: Army housing, though three of the babies, including Jaden, lived at different times in the same townhouse on the North Carolina base." (from above link posted)

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/03/27/whats-killing-babies-fort-bragg/#ixzz1Hru5J9G1

it's possible, imo, very likely that there's a serious mold issue there and that may play a part in the conditions which led to the deaths of the 12 infants.

as for the military it seems like cya to me, as there would possibly be lawsuits.

 

[chemcopout]

as for the privatization of military housing; wouldn't it be better if the military never sold out the housing to private corps, and kept it themselves? that way the military itself could have its soldiers take care of it and also keep the money from rent.

these private corps that take over housing, institutions usually let them go down the drain in general.

 

[teedie2]

nyc, double thanks for the link.

This, from your post:

And the poor mother whose baby died is now back in the housing with another baby and that baby is now having these same symptoms!

is appalling.

And the article reports that after her son's death in April, relatives came to visit with their 7-month-old daughter, and that child died in July while they were still visiting there.

That particular house needs to be burned to the ground.

 

[Kat]

as for the privatization of military housing; wouldn't it be better if the military never sold out the housing to private corps, and kept it themselves? that way the military itself could have its soldiers take care of it and also keep the money from rent.

these private corps that take over housing, institutions usually let them go down the drain in general.

http://www.acq.osd.mil/housing/mhpi.htm

snipped but the entire website above is helpful.

The MHPI program was created to address two significant problems concerning housing for military service members and thier families. The first problem was the poor condition of DoD-owned housing. At the beginning of the program, DoD owned worldwide approximately 257,000 family h ousing units both on and off-base. Over 50 percent of the units needed to be renovated or replaced because over the past 30 years they have not been sufficiently maintained or modernized.

It is my experience that they were only maintained at a minimum with little to no renovations.

The DOD did not have the money to do that because of lack of funding. (politics) and there is no way to task soldiers and train soldiers to do renovations to quarters without money (drawdowns...etc). It sounds like a good idea but it's just not possible. The military's focus is on the mission at hand and that doesn't include doing plumbing, electrical renovations...etc. Good thought though I'm not trying to sound harsh just giving my point of view is all.o

I scrounged around the internet and I couldn't find what I was looking for but back in the mid 90's when privatization was being bantered around as a possiblity it was said that it would cost the DOD millions (or IIRC it could have been billions?) to bring the quarters up to living standards and to build enough housing for the then current number of soldiers requiring housing.

Since then of course we had a huge surge in the number of troops that we have simply because we have been in a war for a decade. (There is soon to be another drawdown or atleast that is the word in the ranks and who is going to lose their job is being talked about).

Privitization has it's problems. Huge problems. But the bigger problem IMHO is the old housing that has yet to be razed or renovated. That is a huge problem. Being old school military we had to live in a few of those old housing units and to give you an example one that we moved out of was condemned as uninhabitable the day after we moved out of it.

I have no way of knowing if these children were living in old housing or newly built housing. I also have no way of knowing if the parent that was deployed (was there a parent that had been deployed prior?) was not exposed to something that could have caused a genetic alteration. (Gulf war syndrome babies).


Not directed at poster that I quoted just some thoughts:

I do not think IMHO that the military is covering anything up about the death of these children. Lawsuits are lodged against the US Govn everyday. They just don't have any reason to lie and to cover up the death of children when to do so impacts the moral and welfare of their troops and families. The bottom line is that the powers that be at that instillation are not some anonymous faceless entity. They are officers that serve right along with other officers and enlisted soldiers. I just don't see the CG of Fort Bragg telling anyone to cover up the death of an infant. But that's just my humble opinion

 

[AsoldiersGrits]

as for the privatization of military housing; wouldn't it be better if the military never sold out the housing to private corps, and kept it themselves? that way the military itself could have its soldiers take care of it and also keep the money from rent.

these private corps that take over housing, institutions usually let them go down the drain in general.

Things are much better since the houses are being contracted out.I lived in both type house (privatized and not) privatized keeps order.
Even if military kept it themselves we still would not keep the rent money. Now that privatized housing has taken over instead of our BAH just going to rent,water,trash and electric. Our BAH goes to all that plus they mow our grass and there's a baseline for electric if we go over then we pay put of our pocket if we are under then we get money back. For instance we just got a 30 dollar check (not much but still lol) for staying under the baseline.
As someone else stated they need to take down and completely rebuild the old houses! Stop putting people in the old ones till new ones are finished. And money does have alot to do with it. Even the new houses have problems not bad but when you have so many houses to build with such little money you do things the cheap way. (after all because of funding we may not get a paycheck on the 15 of April)

 

[STEADFAST]

It's true, as AsoldiersGrits said, BAH has always been given up in total when a soldier lives in base housing. (That's because "Basic Allowance for Housing" is what the military pays you to allow you to find alternative quarters other than military.) It's also true that when housing was managed by the military, the residents were in charge of taking care of yards and minor maintenance. They kept equipment and supplies for you at a location (can't remember what that was called.) So it seems, on the surface that privatization would make things better, and I guess it does in some ways.

BUT, like all things military that have been privatized, especially in the past 10 years, what you give up are workers that HAVE to care about their job performance, who have pride in what they do and are under strict accountability. Now, we've got housing, PSD, base maintenance, etc, etc, being done by people who are often undisciplined, lazy, poorly trained, and completely ignorant of the way things are done in the military. There have always been lots of civilians working for the military, but before privatization, these people had military supervisors.

Before privatization, one military family in housing may have been giving up $700/mo while another was giving up $1600/mo, say, but the one giving up the most had much better quarters. Now everybody gets the same thrown together homes. Also, when the military members themselves were taking care of their yards, the yards were perfect (because not having them perfect would get you a chewing out by your commanding officer.) Now, basically, you just end up with a random guy driving around on a lawnmower and some other guy whacking away at everything with a weedeater.

I wish some of these families would sue the private housing company over these deaths so that depositions could be taken and we could get to the bottom of whether there is really an environmental danger or not. That said, nobody is forced to live in housing (or forced to take the first quarters offered -- you get at least one refusal without going to the bottom of the list, I think.)

 

[Kat]

I agree with everything you've said Steadfast and I too wish one families of these children would sue that private housing office to kingdom come. JMHO.

 

[STEADFAST]

Army investigators said Thursday that they have closed their examination of the unexplained deaths of young children in Fort Bragg housing without determining the cause of the children's deaths. . . .
Army Secretary John McHugh expressed frustration in late March with the lack of answers to the deaths and ordered a team of chemists, architects and environmental health experts to conduct another analysis.
CID spokesman Chris Grey said Thursday that all tests have turned up no leads, so the Army was closing the case on 10 of the deaths.
http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/9557331/

This would make me angry, except I can't think of where else they could go from here, if all the tests are coming back negative. Maybe instead of just looking at the housing in general, they should be looking closely at the children who died and their medical and environmental histories.

 

[teedie2]

They did say that if anything new turns up, they would investigate again. I would hope that something "new" will not be the death of another child.

 

[teedie2]

Famous last words...

Child, unresponsive at Bragg day care, later dies


Fort Bragg officials are investigating the death of a 4-month-old boy who became unresponsive at a day care center on post and died.
The Fayetteville Observer reported that Fort Bragg spokesman Ben Abel says the boy first became unresponsive Friday. He was taken to Cape Fear Valley Medical Center, where he died.
Army Criminal Investigation Command is looking into the death of the child, whose name was not released.

<snip>

More at link:

http://www.wral.com/news/news_briefs/story/10864411/

 

[Shelby2]

This would make me angry, except I can't think of where else they could go from here, if all the tests are coming back negative. Maybe instead of just looking at the housing in general, they should be looking closely at the children who died and their medical and environmental histories.

Perhaps they should hire different experts. There is something very wrong here. The way this country 'takes care' of their military, and returning veterans, is disgusting.

 

[Krysnicole]

They were all also getting shots and treatment from the same medical facility. My son died around the same time as did another girl who was under 2. Add that to the 10.