Mold painted over, wires dangling and black rusted pipes framing the ceiling were part of everyday reality for Marines, sailors and airmen living in barracks on Guam. The conditions left the Navy’s top admiral in charge of barracks across the service baffled.
Photos of the Palau Hall barracks at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, and comments in an email from a senior Navy official were obtained by the Project on Government Oversight and shared with Task & Purpose.
“It is baffling to discover sailors living in these conditions,” Vice Adm. Scott Gray, the head of Navy Installations Command, wrote in a May 5 email obtained by POGO.
Guam is home to nearly 21,000 U.S. military personnel and their families from three of the services. In 2024, the U.S. began moving Marines who were based in Japan to the Pacific island and opened a new installation earlier this month called Camp Blaz. Before the Marine Corps installation was established, Guam was home to Andersen Air Force Base and Naval Base Guam.
There are currently around 430 airmen and soldiers living in the barracks at Andersen Air Force Base, with 77 airmen in Palau Hall specifically, according to an Air Force spokesperson.
There were previously 25 Marines and 48 sailors living in the Palau Hall barracks before they were moved at the direction of Navy Secretary John Phelan after a base tour in early May. Phelan was “shocked and dismayed” at the barracks conditions, Capt. Adam Clampitt, a spokesperson for the secretary, told Task & Purpose. Phelan directed that Marines and sailors be moved within 10 days and that Camp Blaz open in mid-May, a month ahead of schedule, he said.
The Marine Corps and Navy personnel who were living in the Air Force barracks were part of a helicopter rescue squadron. The hangar used by their unit was destroyed in a 2023 typhoon, moving their aircraft and jobs to a different section of the base. In order to be closer to the new hangar, the troops moved to Palau Hall, Clampitt said.
Phelan, who was sworn in as Secretary of the Navy in March, visited the billeting as part of a wider tour of installations in the Pacific.
“This was the angriest I’ve seen the secretary when he saw the condition of these,” Clampitt said, adding that Phelan pointed out the juxtaposition of a pristine golf course nearby on base.
‘Failure of leadership‘
In his May 5 email, Vice Adm. Gray called the conditions of the Guam barracks a “failure of leadership” across multiple commands, stating that the barracks are “clearly way outside any reasonable standard” and “clearly lack any sense of ownership.”
Gray also directed a Navy-wide inspection of barracks by May 27 that included an interior and exterior check, review of staffing levels, amenities like Wi-Fi and kitchens, and plans to improve conditions or relocate sailors. In his inspection instructions, he also said to apply the “Washington Post test,” adding that if pictures taken during the assessment were published online, “would you be able to personally justify sailors living there?”
In the interim, Gray said in his email that the priority was to make sure the barracks “meet the ‘mom test.’” If they didn’t, he directed that sailors and marines be moved to more “suitable quarters.”
Cmdr. Alana Garas, a spokesperson for Navy Installation Command, said inspections are ongoing, but that as of Wednesday, all regions have reported on most of their unaccompanied housing facilities.
Garas said that Vice Adm. Gray’s email reiterated the responsibility of Navy commanding officers to ensure that inspections take place to “maintain safe and healthy living conditions” for sailors, “whether the unaccompanied housing facilities are Navy-owned or not.”
The barracks are run by the Air Force, so Clampitt said they are not in charge of handing down punishments for the dilapidating conditions.
“The Air Force expects commanders to regularly inspect permanent party living conditions to ensure service members have safe housing. Installation commanders assign dorm leaders to occupied, permanent party dorms who inspect their facilities daily,” An Air Force spokesperson told Task & Purpose in a statement.
Barracks issues have become a hot button issue in recent years with Congress standing up a Quality of Life panel and a damning Government Accountability Office report stating that they posed health and safety issues for troops. Millions have been put towards barracks in previous defense funding bills, and another $1 billion for maintenance and upgrades at Army, Navy, Air Force, and Space Force barracks is being requested in a congressional spending bill, which has passed the House and heads to the Senate.
The Air Force spokesperson said that the service faces “several environmental elements” in Guam and that “harsh conditions accelerate the rate at which materials deteriorate and reduce their overall lifespan.”
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