If a solder's room is dirty and he's on leave, can the chain of command box his personal items up as punishment?

can you get kicked if you dont clean your room a few times?

SGT Daniel McBride the answer to your question is yes the chain of command can box everything up in a soldiers barracks room, all it requires is two NCO's to do a complete inventory of the room and I mean complete so as to cover the COC if a soldier says something is missing he has no recourse. So if there is 3 paperclips in the desk drawer then you put 3 paperclips on the inventory sheet. I would also have both NCO's do a sworn statement on why and what you did . Barracks do not belong to the soldier they belong to the 1SG who allows them to stay there. Now my only question as I've given you what you can legally do as I was a Military Police Officer , my only question is why? What will this accomplish? Just more paperwork for the COC and if the soldier comes back and he's a guardhouse lawyer and decides to say "I had $100 dollars in my dresser drawer and it's now gone, well then the commander has to start a 15/6 investigation and appoint an investigating officer and even though you all know it's bullshit, it makes the NCO's who did the inventories lives hard, is it worth the chance of all that? My advise is seal the room with a padlock or call for a work order and change the door lock and put a note on the door to report to the 1SG office upon his return or better yet pull his damn leave and order him back and take care of his nasty behind then.

Paragraph 5 AR 27-10 says that within CONUS, if property is issued as a private space, only DPW personnel are allowed to enter without permission, unless given permission from post CO. Policy letters usually find a way around this. I'd secure the items myself, and tell muy platoon sergeant, "I got this". He immediately knows that I'll handle the soldier at the squad level with sweat and tears as soon as they come back.

YES. Everything you do in the military has a reason, a purpose. Discipline and attention to details make a good soldier. Of course when I was in a soldier did not go on leave if the barracks was not squared away.

I see no reason not. The "room" is owned by the government, and such an action could simply be justified, for SOP, and safety and health reasons. The soldier's "stuff" is only being "secured", not confiscated or anything, so I don't view this as punishment or a prejudicial action. You're supposed to have your stuff secure , organized and tidy anyway by every unit SOP I ever knew, or is this some "new army" thing, soldiers can leave their area a mess when on leave. If a Top/Smash does a walk-through, is this "OK"? There is some real justification there, or it used to be. Been there , had to do exactly that.

How many times have we been on leave and left our house or barracks room a little dirty? We're all guilty of it at some point in our military careers. Packing up the Soldiers property doesn't fit the crime due to room not clean, but blasting a loud radio system in the barracks warrant a packing. But the SM should have provided the chain of command a copy of high dollar value inventory sheet prior to leave just in case something did come up missing.

Band the room if possible until he returns. Then have said soldier take it all outside and set a tent up where he can live until he learns to maintain his room to standard.

Military needs leaders. Not parents.

When I was stationed at Ford Hood back in 2001 this happened and the items were boxed up and the soldiers was made to sleep in the HQ on a cot. His job was to make sure the HQ was cleaned every morning and every night for 30 days. Soldier was then allowed back into the barracks and was only allowed to have non personal items for another 30 days. I think the point was made. As a lower enlisted I was angry at this but I became a leader later I understood that even though we are babysitters we still have to teach and train troops from time to time the things that their parents didn't. As I used to say, I'm here to fix what your parents didn't do to not only make you a better soldier, but to make you a better person.

Keep the door shut