The new “Warrior Zone” at Joint Base Lewis-McChord isn’t going to be a place to practice firing an M4.
It’s designed to become a place where single soldiers can hang out, eat and play games. The $10 million site is under construction by Stellar, a Florida contractor, and it’s expected to open next year
Stellar in an announcement it released last week said the 24,600 square-foot facility will have:
- Internet and video gaming stations
- A “home theater” service members can reserve to watch movies
- Billiards tables
- A restaurant, coffee café, lounge area and sports bar
- An outdoor gathering area soldiers can reserve
- Offices and a conference room
The Warrior Zone is being built through the Army’s Better Opportunities for Single Soldiers program, an initiative that aims to provide recreation for bachelors and single parents.
What a terrible, terrible waste of money.
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I think that it’s money very well spent. Married soldiers and airmen get to go home to their families at night. The single guys get to go back to the barracks that might have a small day room. Most nights they sit alone or they go out to a bar to have some company.
The government has spent a lot more money studying ants and building bridges to nowhere.
If there was a place on my 1040 income tax form to donate money to this type of project I would check the “YES” box.
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Since anyone with an ID card could get on McChord before JBLM I wonder what has changed to increase the crime rate by 40%?
Are they assigning Army families now to McChord housing and the crime rate has gone up? If that is the case that needs to be looked into immediately. Deployed troops don’t need to be worrying about family left behind in base housing! That has always been considered a safe haven as far as I am concerned…
$10 mil for an activity center? That’s a little overboard. But then again they could have social dances like they did at the Tacoma USO back in the 50′s. Instead of local girls McChord could arrange training flights to Nellis AFB and bring back some ladies for a weekend of dancing?
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Haha. Good luck finding a girl who would leave Vegas to come to crappy Pierce county?
This thing is SUCH a waste of money. Its going to end up just like the O and E clubs on the bases where nobody ever goes. People in the military these days want to spend as little time on base as possible. They spend so much time in the office, or deployed all they want to do is get away from the base in their free time. Spend the money on hiring more people do take the workload off these troops. How would you like to be in the desert living in a tent most of the year, only to come home and find out you know have to do two people’s jobs because they are making cuts…and now $10M on this waste?
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…and its only a matter of time before they vandalize everything and break all the equipment rendering it all useless
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And who decided on the GAMES??? Our Warriors not getting enough time out in the Field so now the Army wants to keep them in WARRIOR MODE? I think it’s a recipie for disaster. BTW, WHY would a CHAPEL cost the same amount of money as this overpriced game center??? Another FINE example of our tax dollars at work….OH yes, one more point-do you think the contract went to a locl (WA State) company??Heck NO!!!
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Unless you’ve actually been a single soldier here on post, STHU. You have no clue as to what goes on here. Everything here is geared towards family-this and family-that. Yeah, they got BOSS, but this is something that doesn’t require any sort of organization. Essentially that’s what our single soldiers need–some unstructured down-time to just hang out and goof off for a bit.
This is going to help them 2-fold: one, they won’t have to waste their low-paying wages on gaming systems and junk like that that they can’t really afford, and two, it keeps them off the streets and busy mingling with peers.
For those of you who said that they’ll be engaged in crime and whatever—again, you have no clue.
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What a total eff’n waste of OUR money !
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The first two comments on this post simply need to be slapped down. Obviously they have never worn a uniform, nor have they ever been to any MWR facility. Man I could here the coconuts bangin’ when the second commenter came up with “40%” HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Wanna learn more about BOSS? go here…
http://www.armymwr.com/recleisure/single/default.aspx
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The negative comments are so sad. I am sorry you think it is a waste of money to take care of our single soldiers, young men who put their lives on the line for you no questions asked. As far as a gang and drug hang out LOL it’s a gamers hangout WOW players, Xbox players, Young kids who yesterday were in their rooms playing Xboxes and Computer games. Fact is these are things promised to young men and women when they sign up. We pay them poorly they spend most their time broke and without Gyms and Rec centers to occupy their time depression sets in and then we do have problems. If you have the time and really want to see the truth call the Nelson Recreation Center I would love to have you out as my guest give you a tour and explain why these service members deserve a Warrior Zone and what the purpose of the warrior zone is since it is apparent you really don’t know.
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