Living conditions while you are deployed often aren’t the greatest. Sometimes you just have to deal with it. However, over at a base in Romania we have HQ’s elements of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) who are living in conditions that are unacceptable by any measure.

For about 3 months there have been about 200 Soldiers living in tents that have been overrun by a huge rat and mice infestation. Soldiers have had rodents crawling over the floors and on their stuff at night, air assaulting off the tent beams, leaving lockers, linen, and the floors covered with feces and urine. Soldiers have reported rats/mice crawling in their blankets, rucks, and sleeping bags, and even mice under their pillows. Soldiers have had outbreaks of body rashes, breathe in the awful smell daily, and sleep in fear and dread of waking up and finding a rat crawling on them. Soldiers wake up daily and see dead carcasses on the floor and in their stuff.

And the U.S. Army wonders why recruiting and retention is down…