The Barksdale AFB dorm (in Shreveport)? This is a shot of the old dorm I lived in (renovation around 1984, after I left). It was one of the worst places you can imagine before the renovation, and I actually stayed there for roughly two years.
It'd been built in the mid-1960s and was state-of-the art when it was built. But from like 1981 to 1983....it was in terrible shape.
The cooling unit was no longer able to cool. It was a shocker to survive the two summers I spent there with almost no cooling whatsoever.
The heating unit would only heat to a sufficient level (around 25-degrees). Anything below that and it just subtracted from the general comfort of the room. At some point, around minus-five degrees....the room temperature was around 32-degrees. Even the mini-heating unit I bought could barely add ten degrees onto the room, and it'd pop the circuit breaker after thirty minutes of use.
The cockroaches? In the middle of the night, if you got up and turned on the light.....the one sink in the room would have around a dozen cockroaches scrambling around. I'd keep a can of lighter fluid nearby and spray them with that.
Mice were a problem on the first floor....luckily, I lived on the third floor.
The water for the showers....if you didn't have a problem with water switching from mild-warm to extreme-cold in the winter months....it was Ok.
The ice storm in January of 1984? It covered the fire escape entirely and made it impossible to use as an exit.
The natural gas leak in 1982? It took two days for them to get the gas cleared out and make the dorm safe for usage.
It was the only barracks that I came eventually to hate with a passion. If I hadn't had orders to leave in January of 1984....I would have said enough and just applied for quarters pay and moved off-base.
From what I can figure....they renovated the place in 1984.....again in the late 1990s, and finally tore the entire building down two or three years ago.
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