Episode 5: Enlisted Housing
Eventually I had to go there, enlisted housing. If you are ever at a party and feel no one is talking to you bring up any one of these three topics and you will have both brought the conversation to you and found out what women in the room are the drama queens, which may be more than you expected so prepare yourself. So you may ask what topics might those be.......well let me tell you: Tricare/Military Hospitals, schools on base, and housing. These topics gain universal jabbering and from my experience usually more in the negative zone. Being the twisted person that I am I enjoy listening to their tails of woo, kind of like when you watch someone fall down stairs and can't stop laughing. You know they are hurt but that internal devil inside of you finds joy in another's misery. As I digress, enlisted housing who exactly approves for people to live in these things labeled a home. It sure wasn't another enlisted person. Even a soldier that can't stand his NCO wouldn't so this to the guys family. Yes, there are some nice homes on base but let's be frank those belong to Officer's and if those slated for Enlisted belong to Senior NOC's and out of that bunch it is usually E-9 families.
I remember my husband calling me on my way back from a youth camping trip and telling me we had finally received a house on our third assignment. I swung by to take a look at the home the housing office listed as 1,400 sq ft and wonder if Helen Keller took the measurements because there was no way that box qualified as 1,400 much less a 4 bedroom. They had literally taken a closet and made it into a bedroom. Now I realize I have a daughter that doesn't even make the BMI chart but she still needs to fit a bed in the room. And I don't think that CPS would find it appropriate for us to house her in a gerbil cage. I told my husband ok, begrudgingly, and then sobbed two days later leaving my husband to tell the house Nazi's we will pass. It is fine and dandy to say the military provides housing but that logic works as well as telling a wife the affair doesn't count because you were TDY. So my solution to the problem instead of just adding fuel to the spouse fire is have spouses on the housing board. Convene a board of spouses to give their input on housing needs. We know what works, what amenities are necessary and this way like everything else in the world when someone complains housing can pass the buck to the panel of spouses.
I remember my husband calling me on my way back from a youth camping trip and telling me we had finally received a house on our third assignment. I swung by to take a look at the home the housing office listed as 1,400 sq ft and wonder if Helen Keller took the measurements because there was no way that box qualified as 1,400 much less a 4 bedroom. They had literally taken a closet and made it into a bedroom. Now I realize I have a daughter that doesn't even make the BMI chart but she still needs to fit a bed in the room. And I don't think that CPS would find it appropriate for us to house her in a gerbil cage. I told my husband ok, begrudgingly, and then sobbed two days later leaving my husband to tell the house Nazi's we will pass. It is fine and dandy to say the military provides housing but that logic works as well as telling a wife the affair doesn't count because you were TDY. So my solution to the problem instead of just adding fuel to the spouse fire is have spouses on the housing board. Convene a board of spouses to give their input on housing needs. We know what works, what amenities are necessary and this way like everything else in the world when someone complains housing can pass the buck to the panel of spouses.
Honestly, my husband is an officer in the AF, and the housing for the officers at every base we have been too has been substandard. The enlisted housing is SO much better! In fact, at our first duty station, we thought the enlisted housing area WAS the officer's housing it looked so much nicer! Even the inside (I had a few friends over there) was laid out better, and the space used more efficiently than in the house we were given! And, all of the officer floor plans were the same! At least there was some sort of choice in the enlisted housing - even if a choice wasn't given because not all floor plans were available.