ALI AL SALIM, Kuwait, - Soldiers from the 53rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team of the Florida Army National Guard recently hosted a grand opening ceremony for a newly built morale welfare and recreation room here.
Maj. David H. Butler, executive officer for the Army Life Support Area, said the project started as something totally different from building an MWR room. The original plan was to operate and maintain a functional self help office and tool room that was already in place, but needed repairs.
After the planning started they found that permanent party service members at the LSA were using half of the building as a make-shift hang out spot. Previous camp commands had apparently allowed the permanent residents to have keys to the building so they would have a more relaxing place to play cards and hang out, due to the overwhelming amount of transient personnel at the camp’s MWR facilities.
“We realized that there was no place for the permanent party to gather, so people that don’t even smoke were hanging out at the smoke shacks,” said Butler. “The decision was made to fix the problem.”
The project took about four months from inception to completion, with all the manual labor being done by the IBCT soldiers of the LSA camp command cell and volunteers from the camp. “The hardest part has been getting materials,” said Butler. “We acquired our materials from every camp that we visited for meetings, by going to their self help shops.”
Once the USO at the LSA heard about the project they jumped behind the command with full support. According to Butler the USO spent about $2,000 on the project by purchasing two poker tables, a big screen television, surround sound speakers, and a hard drive full of music and movies. On top of providing the funding for equipment and furniture to fill the new room, the USO provided all of the food and drinks for the grand opening cook out.
“The USO has been outstanding partners,” said Butler.
The new facility will be available 24-hours a day to all permanent party service members at the LSA. The planning and hard work of the 53rd soldiers along with volunteers from the camp has provided a new MWR area complete with a picnic and patio area, a grilling area, an outside deck with shading, and of course the room itself.
“We started with a building in disrepair and turned it into this,” said Command Sgt. Maj. Kenneth North, command sergeant major of the LSA.