WASHINGTON — Some have gone a year without hot water. Others are sleeping in their cars to escape rooms with no air conditioning. Others are still asking only for a door that locks, a working light bulb, a place to wash their clothes, a wall free of mould.
Those are among the conditions Medal of Honour recipient Dakota Meyer says he has encountered while touring military installations on a mission from US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth: fix a barracks system plagued by decades of neglect.
“I would tell you that there’s only a couple that I’ve seen that are good,” Meyer told Fox News Digital in an interview Thursday.
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Meyer, who serves as senior adviser to the Pentagon’s Barracks Task Force, has visited more than eight installations across the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps since taking on the assignment and plans to visit 30 before the end of the year.
What began as a formal advisory role swiftly became something more personal. “What I thought was gonna be a professional job very quickly turned into personal,” Meyer said.
What Has Meyer Found On His Tour Of US Military Bases?
At one installation, Meyer recalled asking a 19-year-old service member what she would change about her living conditions if she could “wave a magic wand.” “If she could just have a hot shower,” Meyer recalled. “It’s absolutely heartbreaking.”
The pattern has repeated itself across installations spanning every branch of the armed forces. “They’re asking for a hot shower. They’re asking for a place to wash their clothes. They’re asking for a door that locks. They’re asking to be able to go to sleep in a place that doesn’t have mould. I mean, they’re asking for light bulbs,” Meyer said.
“They’re willing to be part of the solution,” he added.
Photographs from Meyer’s inspections made public alongside the Fox News report show extensive apparent mould and water damage covering walls and closets, a damaged ceiling hanging above a bed, a barracks room with a sink missing its basin and makeshift lighting rigged around a bathroom ceiling, and a window air-conditioning unit sitting beneath a water-stained ceiling. The images describe a housing system that has normalised conditions that would render a privately owned property uninhabitable.
How Long Has This Crisis Been Building?
The Pentagon’s barracks problems long predate Hegseth and have survived repeated attempts at reform. A sweeping 2023 Government Accountability Office investigation documented serious health and safety hazards and found that the department lacked reliable information about the condition of its own barracks, could not determine how much of its facilities spending went toward them and provided insufficient oversight.
Congress and the military services have since committed billions toward improvements, including initiatives ranging from the Marine Corps’ Barracks 2030 to a Navy overhaul of unaccompanied housing. Yet serious problems persist. As of this year, 12 of the GAO’s 31 recommendations remained outstanding.
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