More than 6 months after Hurricane Florence ravaged North Carolina, hundreds of buildings at Camp Lejeune and 2 other nearby Marine Corps installations remain frozen in time, with walls still caved in and roofs missing.
in its aftermath. And while they have torn down soggy, moldy walls, put tarps on roofs and moved Marines into trailers, so far they have not received a penny from the federal government to fix the damage.Now the Marine Corps' top officer is warning that readiness at Camp Lejeune — home to one third of the Corps' total combat power — is degraded and"will continue to degrade given current conditions." In a recent memo to Navy Secretary Richard Spencer, Commandant Gen.
"We're 100 percent operational," said Col. Brian Wolford, chief of staff to II MEF."We're here doing our work. But the conditions we're working under are just like when we were in Iraq or Afghanistan." A classroom inside one of the buildings damaged by Hurricane Florence on the historic Montfort Point section of Camp Lejeune, where the first African American Marines received their training during World War II. The building will be demolished because of extensive damage from mold and flooding from the roof.As NBC News toured the damage, Marines at the main II MEF headquarters building maintained a positive attitude about their working conditions.
Some buildings on base are beyond repair, with ceilings caved in, walls crumbling and mold everywhere. At Camp Johnson, which sits on historic Montford Point, on the northern side of Lejeune, the buildings have never been re-occupied, and Marines learning combat service support spend their days in classroom trailers. Montford Point, where the first African Americans received their training to be Marines during World War II, is a sacred place for the Marine Corps.
"We've done all the due diligence that we [can] and we keep on waiting for further assistance," he said."And there's different reasons why I guess we haven't got that. That's not for me to say. I'm just disappointed."
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