Should NCOs inspect barracks during the weekend?

So glad I'm retired ...

We 'lived' there. Dont come barging in like you own the place. Would you like me to go to your house and barge in? We had a shitload of work to do to keep the motor pool running. As long as it was cleaned up and didnt smell. Yeah there were inspections but they just didnt want to see wrinkles in the bunks. Pretty much only saw the inside of our wall locker if they were standing there. We were treated like adults unless we proved otherwise.

One of the best lessons I ever learned in a leadership course was this: "Catch your people doing something RIGHT. Point out that you caught it, in front of everyone."

Go back to the nightly CQ and runner. 12 hrs nightly and 24 on weekends.

We had a barracks inspection where the guy across the hall, that was from another unit, got caught with a hooker in the wardrobe, and that was the 3rd time she had been kicked out from 3 different guys. He was a SPC. they gave him extra duty in the desert as we were about to deploy. This would never have happened in base housing or off base housing. One of the difficulties i had living in the barracks was it was like college dorm. I was 28-29. with with 18 year olds running and screaming. I can see inspections weekly, with hours to reinspect after work hours during the work week for thoes individual soldiers.

I also remember SSG getting stupid making soldiers who had 2 deployments and severe ptsd getting stupid and making their soldiers empty their room, one item at at a time, rune down 2 flights of steps and leave the item in the parking lot. 1 boot, that is 2 items, boot and laces. It is stupidity like that that drives good soldiers out. There is a need for inspections periodically, but daily is stupid.

Just absurd, what's the point of inspecting them on the weekends? Cleanliness? Do we expect soldiers to live like their in a museum on Saturdays and Sundays now was well? Do we expect them not to drink and act like 18-22 year olds? I would love to know what retention numbers look like in that unit.

Long ago in an Army far, far away from today's, we had our rooms inspected every workday by the 1SG and the PSGs and if the rooms were not IAW the posted SOP, guess what you got to do that evening? Not to mention our alarm clock being the first-line NCOs knocking on our doors every morning before first formation to wake us, get us up for pt and to clean the hallways of the barracks. By the early-mid 90's with the "Single Soldier Initiative" and the emphasis placed on the BOSS Program, the Army as a whole, got away from daily room inspections and even did away with CQ duty altogether. NCOs had to basically inform the Soldiers that they would be doing a walk-thru on such and such day at such and such time. There was no longer an SOP as far as how a room had to be set-up, hell you even got to have "civilian" bedding for your bed, no more scratchy, green wool blankets!! But, while this was nice for the Soldier, far too many took advantage of this and barracks became shitholes for lack of a better term. Doing a once a week walk-thru of the common area of the barracks to check on cleanliness doesn't seem like too much to impose upon the Soldiers in the barracks, they are still government facilities that must be maintained and looked after. As for those married Soldiers, while on-base housing used to be government controlled and you could feasibly check-up on them, this was usually handled by the housing area/zone coordinators who were responsible for keeping an eye on things, at least the outside of quarters; this is no longer the case as all on-post housing is owned by contractors and the same oversight is no longer there. Off-post housing was always tricky, I usually made a social trip when I had a newly assigned married Soldier or a newly married one, just to check things out to ensure that they weren't living in a place that was condemned or close to it. As far as an inspection of married Soldiers quarters, unless a concern was raised by the unit or by the landlord or some protective services, this was pretty much a no-go, as the Soldiers do not have to let you come inside if they do not want to.

Now having said a great deal of nothing but mainly memories of my time in service lol, a weekend walk-thru for general cleanliness of the barracks themselves is not too intrusive, but as far as inspecting rooms, meh, let the knuckleheads/knuckleheadettes be!!

I used to go walk through the barracks every weekend. No inspection, no harrassment, just walk down the hallways letting my guys know I was there if a door was open. Sometimes I'd see absolutely nobody, sometimes I'd see my whole squad and we'd shoot the shit for a few minutes. On more than one occasion, I've driven one of my guys to the PX or commissary on the weekend to pickup "supplies" for the next cook out or whatever. These guys don't need to be fucked with.

Hell. No soldiers need a time to wind down.,

The standard is REASONABLE EXPECTATION OF PRIVACY for soldiers. You’d have to be mental to think that’s a reasonable imposition on their privacy. Fuck what rank you are, that isn’t right.