To battle moldy barracks, Fort Stewart soldiers built their own mold detectors

https://taskandpurpose.com/military-life/mold-detection-tool/

by PaulHoule • 3 years ago

65 46 3 years ago

23B13• 3 years ago

If you want to understand why we've been losing wars for 70+ years, look no farther than this perfect microcosm of the U.S. military's approach to leadership.

Field grades denying it's a problem, gaslighting those who say it's a problem, doing everything they can to suppress discussion about the problem – and then a bunch of lower enlisted dudes having to FFIO on their own.

lbotos• 3 years ago

FFIO - Freakin' Figure It Out (polite form) for those like me who weren't sure :D

psunavy034• 3 years ago

The military as an institution has its flaws, sometimes serious ones. And one could make a serious argument that an up-or-out stack-ranked promotion system is toxic, inefficient, and ineffective at promoting true talent.

But the US military has also not been "losing wars for 70+ years," and the overall tone of this post screams "disgruntled junior enlisted who thinks they have all the answers." It's something I'd frankly expect to see on Reddit.

And with 20 years of active and reserve service, if I had to put one group of military leadership under the microscope as most in need of an institutional course correction, it wouldn't be the O-4s and O-5s. It'd be the E-7+.

mandmandam2• 3 years ago

the US military has also not been "losing wars for 70+ years,"

Maybe you don't consider Korea a loss (many do, and not just on Reddit), but Vietnam is a lot less debatable.

And then in recent years you have the 8 trillion dollars (so far) spent in the ME. It's a staggering, unfathomable loss.

arminiusreturns• 3 years ago

Spoken like an officer indeed (inferring here, could be wrong).

1. Ignores the core subject of the post and the GP's response claiming it is indicative of continued failure of leadership.

2. Generically tries to seem like there is some level of agreement without being concrete in admitting problems in any way.

3. Tries to defend Wilsonionism foreign policy (a root cause evil) by ad-homineming GP as a "disgruntled junior enlisted", and in a later post using the old-faithful "civilian leadership" excuse.

4. Defends officers generally while attacking senior enlisted (who are subject to said officers).

I think you just about made the GP's point.

We have billions for Ukraine and Israel and the military industrial complex (or the better put MICIMATT, by Ray McGovern), but when it comes to taking care of our junior enlisted leadership can't be bothered. Despite your generic denials it is indeed indicative of a repeated failure of leadership pattern. There is a reason recruiting is suffering massively right now... the internet makes it much harder to cover up these sort of things that got swept under the rug in the past, and a completely disconnected from the constitution foreign policy that is plain for all to see exacerbates the problem.

How about we remove the plank from our own eye before we move to take the splinter out of our brothers?

suoduandao2• 3 years ago

I'd say Korea counts as a US win or stalemate, but Vietnam ended with the US achieving none of its objectives, having wasted tons of lives and leaving in a humiliating fashion. Is it so weird to call that a defeat? In that case it's 50 years, given that Afghanistan ended in '21 in similar fashion.

Are you just taking issue with 70 years being hyperbole? If not, I have to say this idea that the US didn't lose a lot starting with Vietnam is weird. In fact, it seems like exactly the kind of delusional self-talk among the leadership that would lead to such situations reoccurring. I mean, suppose I get in a fistfight and get knocked down then don't get up. Can I really say I chose not to get up because I didn't want to hurt the guy too badly and I therefore didn't lose? Even if it's true, it just means I lost on purpose.

halJordan• 3 years ago

Fuckin' get 'em! Agreed with your general sentiment. The navy probably does have a bigger problem with the cult of the chiefs, but the Army less so with its senior enlisted. But the problem is the JBSA post commander LTG Jones told Vice literally on Friday that "I don't have a mold problem, I have a discipline problem." And it's just a gross lie at this point.

https://12ft.io/proxy?&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vice.com%2Fen%2Fa...

23B13• 3 years ago

Username checks out

hattmall2• 3 years ago

This is just a basic hygrometer. It's not a mold detector at all. Is this really the level of innovation the army considers impressive? They are taking at least $400k to build 5500 hygrometers. This is something that already exists off the shelf for even less than that.

Kalibr• 3 years ago

My thoughts as well, just measuring temperature and humidity.

asdff• 3 years ago

If the army buys 5500 hygrometers from aliexpress to install in a military base, they won't just be reading moisture

giantg2• 3 years ago

Surely there are defense contractors already building hygrometers for other defense purposes that could extend their contracts/runs.

hattmall2• 3 years ago

Does the army have strict controls over what troops can bring in the barracks? I get that there are some security implications, but not really. These are super basic devices and there are some very simple controls that can be put in place to mitigate any real concerns.

Scubabear682• 3 years ago

True. And Google says basic digital ones are cheap, I just bought a six pack from Amazon for $9.99.

That said it does have an alerting capability…but even then Amazon shows products for $15 that have wireless alerting.

So yeah, $72 per unit indeed looks to be a waste of money.

_Microft• 3 years ago

Even if they weren’t creating their own devices, they also need to pay the developer(s) that are going to write the backend and fleet management software.

mindslight• 3 years ago

$400k in the context of custom development, testing, and administration? That's cheap. And frankly this approach is much more appropriate than the alternatives of defense contractor pork, defective-by-design consumer "cloud", or having people manually do rounds and record numbers.

Also if you want to claim some high ground about not "wasting money", I don't know why you'd use an example of buying Chineseum from overpriced Amazon rather than getting it drop shipped.

alexfromapex• 3 years ago

There’s not really anything super innovative but if you have something that is alerting when there are conditions for mold growth it’s much more likely to get addressed in a timely manner. I have a thermometer and hygrometer in my crawl space with a digital readout on my refrigerator to prompt me when the dehu isn’t working or if there’s a water or duct leak, etc.

yellow_lead2• 3 years ago

The problem of mold in barracks flared into the news again last week with a Government Accountability Office report that found barracks at 10 installations posed “serious health and safety risks,” with black mold infestations, broken doors and locks and non-military people sleeping in the barracks. In some cases, troops were even left to clean up “biological waste” left by their peers who committed suicide.

Maybe that last one is worth investment as well. Not just having an outside party clean it up, but prevention?

cheschire• 3 years ago

There's a whole list of news articles on this[0] site related to the U.S. military's efforts to prevent suicide. Not saying it's "enough" or anything. Just saying there's clearly an investment being made.

0: https://www.defense.gov/Spotlights/Suicide-Prevention/

tbihl2• 3 years ago

Maybe that last one is worth investment as well. Not just having an outside party clean it up, but prevention?

The military has two readily available levers: money and mandated training. Only the latter is applicable, so we spend hours each year sitting in training full of trigger warnings and trying to destigmatize Discussion about suicide.

Young men have a fairly high rate of completed suicide, and removing them from their social fabric must exacerbate the problem. There may be correlated socio-economic factors between completed suicides and the men who go into the military.

The powerful factors are the work environment and leadership, which the military works desperately to improve by any means they can contrive, and culture, which the military would be powerless to fix, even if underlying society could agree on how to stop funneling people into suicide.

So, if you ever recommend more suicide prevention around servicemen, know that that is why you'll likely earn a rousing, "fuck off."

yellow_lead2• 3 years ago

How is money not applicable? Money can be used to pay for training, interventions, research, etc. 400k would be much better used here than on a custom humidity sensor.

citrin_ru• 3 years ago

If the relative humidity is above 65% and the temperature is above 85 degrees Fahrenheit, that sets the conditions for mold growth

May be this is a typo and they meant below 85? I know black mold grows at around 60F and likely lower temperatures too.

throwawaaarrgh• 3 years ago

If the relative humidity is above 65% and the temperature is above 85 degrees Fahrenheit, that sets the conditions for mold growth

That's 10-15% higher than humidity levels needed for mold growth. And it'll grow at almost any temp above freezing, it's just slower.

Also, "black mold" isn't a thing. Mold can be black and be totally benign. It's the species that counts

jsndidneske• 3 years ago

You can ozonate (use an ozone generator) and drivenout all sorts of undeaireables: rodents, bedbugs, virus particles. Every home should have one. And a reverse osmosis water filter. But nm me.

nulltxt2• 3 years ago

Hasn't the epa said that it doesn't make a difference[0] and can be create ozone levels higher than the current health standard?

0: https://www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality-iaq/ozone-generators-...

yetihehe2• 3 years ago

It depends. It's not a silver bullet, but sometimes ozonating a little smelly house does wonders (I've tried and it helped immensely for a smell which I couldn't get rid of). If you don't remove the reason why mold started, it will return. As for health standard - you need to ozonate when no one is around and then refresh the air. Breathing in ozone will destroy your lungs. If you need to ozonate more than twice a year, something's wrong and you need to alleviate primary reason for mold first.

markstos• 3 years ago

So the solution was to install internet-connected IoT devices into all the barracks? What could go wrong?

samus• 3 years ago

If these are really just temperature and hydrogen sensors, then not that much can actually go wrong. Also, internet connection is not required for this to work. According to the linked press release, it is only connected to WiFi.

phito• 3 years ago

So it's just a connected humidity and temperature sensor...?

rajnathani• 3 years ago

The MCAT is a 3D-printed device that uses remote sensors to monitor temperature and humidity levels within barracks to identify conditions that lead to mold.

This isn’t a mold detector, but rather a predictive system to detect likelihood of mold. It would be really cool if it was actually a mold sensor or one of those neuromorphic solutions like Intel Loihi which could maybe detect mold directly.

To battle moldy barracks, Fort Stewart soldiers built their own mold detectors

Related Stories