12/19/2025
Just when you think you’ve heard it all…🤦🏻♂️
The military has long struggled with keeping enlisted troops’ barracks clean and safe, for a variety of reasons ranging from age, deferred maintenance, and that properly maintaining them tends to slide to the bottom of a long list of budgetary priorities. However, the Navy’s top enlisted leader said he believes one possible solution would be to have sailors make repairs to their own living quarters, but no final decision on the matter has been made.
“I do see more kind of DIY in our future, but not over-the-top kind of DIY, but just kind of how you would normally do if it was your own house,” Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy John Perryman said in response to a question from Task & Purpose on the issue. Perryman said that having junior sailors make more repairs to their barracks would be helpful for several reasons, such as giving sailors a sense of agency over their living quarters.
“It gives us some ownership, where I feel some level of responsibility and pride in the way my barracks looks,” Perryman said.
Although he has vowed to work hard to make sure that fixing barracks and family housing remains a priority for Navy budgets, Perryman also tells sailors it is going to take time to work through the service’s housing issues.
“What I remind them of is: We didn’t get here overnight,” Perryman said. “It’s a big problem, and it’s going to take us a while to truly fix it.”
Rob Evans, an Army veteran who created the Hots & Cots app that allows troops to report issues with barracks, said he has questions about when sailors and other service members might be required to make the type of repairs that Perryman mentioned. “I think that self-help looks good on paper, but what does that really mean?” Evans told Task & Purpose.
“What does self-help really mean at the end of the day? At the barracks task force level, no one has said what that is. No one has really outlined what self-help is.”
(Navy photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Austin Ingram)
