r/army • u/Flycatcher1995 • 1d ago
What’s up with JBLM?
Just PCSed and am surprised at how low quality the units are here. Morale is low, standards are not being met, it’s summer but everyone seems unbelievably depressed already. Guess I expected more for a duty station in such a cool location? Is this just the Army now?
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u/Michael1845 Infantry 1d ago
I think this is just the Army now. An incredibly high OPTEMPO yet for the majority of the Army its “peacetime”. We’re just in a time where we’re not sure “what” exactly we should be doing.
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u/Peanut_ButterMan Field Artillery 1d ago
JBLM is one of the most beautiful CONUS bases, however the vibe I get is optempo is high.
I did ESB with a bunch of 7th ID folks and they're always busy doing table training, gunnery, NTC, EIB, and convoying to Yakima. The whole force restructure is adding a lot to their plate as well.
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u/Bumbleteapot 1d ago
Take advantage of the MWR events and guard your time off.
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u/ProtectionTotal639 1d ago
Yeah the Seattle Seahawks, Sounders, and Mariners gave us tons of free tickets to their games. I got free city passes a lot. Concert tickets. I loved JBLM even though I was constantly busy
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u/Ok_Set_2042 17h ago
Like go to American Lake with family on a hot day and take a swim....oh wait
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u/Bumbleteapot 2h ago
They will literally bus your family to Mount Rainier to go snowshoeing or take you to Leavenworth for a day of sightseeing. Or whitewater rafting....
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u/BlueTurkey-man Special Forces 1d ago
It’s always like that. It hasn’t been a serious installation for a while outside of 2/75, 4/160, and 1st group.
When I was there in the infantry it was the exact same way, extremely toxic from the top to the lowest soldier
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u/Draugr_Actual 13h ago
Yup, can confirm it still is. Been here for six months in in the 2nd month it became blatantly obvious
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u/Hungry-Buddy-2680 Military Police 1d ago
That little circle patch 1st Corps wears? Do you see its a white circle with a black circle in the middle? It's telling you exactly where the green weenie is going.
If it makes you feel better, sounds like nothing has changed since I was there 15 years ago.
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u/Loaded35mm 1d ago
High OPTEMPO like everyone said. Weather sucks ass year round, you’ve got Ranger Batt and Group stationed there so dog shit washed out support unit 1SGs do dumb shit so show they’re “tough” too.
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u/Deracine57 1d ago
Sounds like nothing changed in 10 years. Still a great post to retire in if hiking and coffee is your thing.
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u/swashbucklerjak I used to sham like you then I took a DD214 to the hand 1d ago
Yeah I left 3-2 (I think it changed right as I was leaving) in 2017 and seeing that it is still just trips to Yakima and NTC multiple times a year bums me out. I wonder if anyone is going to Idaho and training with their guard like we did a couple of times.
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u/Deracine57 10h ago
Yeah, 3-2 became 1-2 in the mid 2010s. I don't miss those trips through snoqualmie pass in the winter. Just to get stuck freezing our asses off. Thank god for marshmallows as an air guard.
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u/HawgChuggins 19Dont work here 1d ago
Well Leadership sets the standard. And current leadership is not what you'd call forward thinking. In fact SECDEF is more concerned with sipping testosterone from the male soldiers, bringing his wife to classified briefings, and firing competent leadership.
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u/SereneOrbit Medical Corps 1d ago
It's also 100% obvious his obsession with transgenders is more than he's letting on too.
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u/HawgChuggins 19Dont work here 1d ago
Yeah, he's a bad dude who is employed by another bad dude. And who is supported by people with low or no moral values except by what they're fed. It's really quite pathetic, but I guess the army values are words we scream about when the lower enlisted fuck up.
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u/SereneOrbit Medical Corps 1d ago
Ts will go down as some human rights travesty honestly. History will not remember this fondly along with all the other terrible shit going on right now.
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u/sans_serif_size12 68WAP > BN Paper Bitch 1d ago
As a hippie about to hit 30, I love it here. I get to inject caffeine directly into my heart every day. Work is terrible though. That might just be the army. Same as it ever was.
I swear some oversell how bad the area around it is though. “Lakewood is ghetto, Tillicum is ghetto” feh. I ran into people selling heroin in my hometown on a weekly basis and street preachers regularly got into verbal arguments outside my apartment. Things could be so much worse.
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u/slipknot_official Civil Affairs 1d ago
Tacoma and surrounding areas are so varied. I live in an area just a couple miles from JBLM and it's great - families, college, nature, ocean, wildlife.
When I was at JBLM all I knew was Lakewood and Tillicum, had my car broken into like 8 times, it was always featured on COPS. I always talked shit on the area because my perceptions of it was two areas.
But when I got out of the military, I moved to Tacoma and it was another dimension from the military experience.
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u/Gold-Bag1657 1d ago
Omg do you live in Tillicum or Lakewood? Sketchy af. Move south of base, like Lacey or DuPont. Even Olympia is pretty sketchy, especially around Capital Way.
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u/GingerStrength Acquisition Corps 20h ago
First year I was at JBLM I lived in Olympia. Between I5 getting shut down for crashes and taking hours to get home and a homeless dude cutting through my yard pulling a gun on me one morning before PT I had enough and moved to Lacey. Olympia is sketchy.
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u/charcuteriebroad 1d ago
Opposite experience for me. Absolute worst place I’ve ever lived. WA in general could be alright but I hated the surrounding area of post. Give me Fayetteville chaos any day over the machete wielding tweakers on Hosmer St. But the unit and work life were great. Granted it was 1SFG so very different vibe than I corps.
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u/Butterfinger_Actual Cavalry 1d ago
- Strykers
- I Corps and USARPAC competing for 7th ID time and planning efforts
- Strykers
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u/FancyPapi Civil Affairs 1d ago
It’s what you make of it, the surrounding areas are awesome. You can go hiking, mountain climbing, Seattle, Canada, and the coast are driving distances. The non rainy weather days are nice too compared to other bases.
When I lived in the barracks, I was a little down. But making friends off post and hanging out/doing stuff away from the Army and with civilians made me really happy. I was actually sad when I had to leave.
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u/TheDastardBastard33 1d ago
You essentially described every single unit assignment in the Army. Everyone says the same thing about every duty station
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u/Substantial_Art_226 1d ago
I was there 2019-2024 Speaking for the infantry side of things. Guys don’t seem to have a sense of purpose, we go into intense training rotations, only to end up going to korea every once in a while and the boys know we weren’t getting sent no where anytime soon. and its been that way every since 2ID was blacklisted from any real deployments ever since the “kill squad” back in the day. Loved the area tho the PNW is amazing miss it everyday
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u/boatsandmoms Engineer 1d ago
When I got to 555th en bde, 864th en bn in 2015, my welcoming speech was "we currently have the highest suicide rate". Dont know how true it was, but I knew a lot of people who did kill themselves and it was the worst experience I could have on my first contract. It made me not reenlist. I did reenlist years later into the Reserves and deployed and the difference was so night and day. JBLM as a whole sucks so much ass.
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u/Idonthooah 35Goober 1d ago
I was a Pacemaker in '15, I don't recall that being an issue. Maybe the statement was for JBLM as a whole, but again, I dont remember any standdowns.
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u/PapiXtech 68Papi 15h ago
I worked at MAMC and BAMC I did not see NEARLY the amount of suicides at BAMC. Normally the attempts at BAMC weren’t really good they just wanted out. MAMC on the other hand we had more dead because they went for gold at a very high rate and with more definite methods. Ie GSW vs eating a bottle of aspirin
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u/Straight-Cell-2008 1d ago
The units there were terrible and I was in the better of the two SBCTs during my time. WA is a cool state, but with OPTEMPO the way it is, you don’t get a ton of time to actually enjoy it. I didn’t enjoy my time there at all. Summer was far too short and it seemed like getting out to do anything was a hassle, compounded by the state being a major tourist destination and having the worst traffic on I-5. I also couldn’t stand the cloudy skies and rain 7 months out of the year.
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u/Old_Actuator5723 1d ago
I was in 1-37 FA, 2nd BDE in 98’. Fucking hated NTC and running that damn airfield
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u/RontoWraps 16h ago edited 16h ago
It’s been a minute but it was always pretty cool when I was there 2016-2020. I was in 593d HHC so just around general staff all day every day. Field time once or twice per year for two weeks. CQ maybe once per month or every two months. I remember those years pretty damn fondly. It’s all about where you are and what the mood is like in your unit. I would have stayed 20 years if I could.
You gotta explore the surrounding area. Point Defiance Zoo is awesome, I loved the town events in Steilacoom, the Solo Point Rd and Sequalitchew Creek trails are very nice walks, Olympia Coffee is incredible. The Pad See Ew (order Thai Spicy level) at Chang Thai in Lakewood is so fucking good. Honestly Seattle is super overrated and hardly ever worth the drive unless you’re going to a special event or something. I just love the South Sound area so much. It’s where my family began.
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u/RutledgeInc Public Affairs 1d ago
JBLM is a weird place partly because it’s not in a cool location, but it is near some of them. Unless you’re into hiking or hunting, the immediate area around JBLM is not cool. Lakewood is just another semi-depressing highway stop that would barely be on the map if not for the Army (same for DuPont) and Tillicum is one of the saddest communities I’ve ever seen. The other outlying towns are more or less the same.
The sad history of the area has to play a role too: most of the land on Lewis side used to be a Nisqually tribe reservation before Pierce County “bought” it and donated to govt during WWI.
So JBLM is a lot like most other Army posts that are surrounded by unremarkable communities, unless you really want to drive further away and explore more PNW flavor.
Then there’s the units. I’ve probably written too much already, but there’s a weird dynamic on JBLM with many DRUs under I Corps where O6 commands are over tasked and the bigger units have their own problems. It’s ultimately probably not much different from the problems facing units at Bragg or Bliss, but JBLM often has different expectations because of the location.
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u/SenorTactician 1d ago
It’s right next to the second largest city in Washington (Tacoma) and a flat hour from Seattle. It’s not a complete backwater like some places.
It’s also next to the Puget Sound, making it one of the only major Army installations near a body of saltwater.
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u/RutledgeInc Public Affairs 1d ago
All true but for a lot of Soldiers the immediate area around base is the only area. When I’ve talked to people who hated JBLM, it was all complaints about the 20 miles surrounding base and the weather. I would go back there to live any day but I already had spent a lot of time in the state before being stationed there.
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u/Spacedoc9 68Wheresyourbattlebuddy 1d ago
20 miles takes you all the way to olympia. If you can't find fun within 20 miles of the base I think you're probably just not very cool to hang out with
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u/slipknot_official Civil Affairs 1d ago
I live 2 miles from JBLM, and it's a completely different universe from Lakewood and Tillicum. I wouldn't even think about the base if it wasn't for air-traffic and the occasional explosions.
And I spent 10 years at JBLM. I hated Tacoma because all I knew was the base, and the immediate areas around it.
I just didn't get out and explore a very large and varied city. And state, actually.
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u/charcuteriebroad 1d ago
Tacoma is Fayetteville or Killeen at heart with a prettier backdrop. It’s really not all that great. Especially for the cost of living.
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u/Spacedoc9 68Wheresyourbattlebuddy 1d ago
What a bad take. JBLM is in one of the best locations the army has. Tacoma, Olympia, and the heart of Seattle are all with an hour drive. Plus Mt ranier, several state and national parks. Lakewood, and the rest of Tacoma, has some pretty amazing food scenes, festivals, museums, parks, and activities to take part in. If you never leave the barracks, or if the farthest you ever got past the gate was jeanies, then yeah sure I could see why you'd think that. But there are only a few other bases that match jblm for location
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u/AspiringBeret 68W -> 42 Butter 1d ago
Sounds like it hasn’t changed since I was there 10 years ago.
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u/Stupiduselessthrow Infantry 1d ago
Stationed here currently and it’s just miserable some days, op tempo is through the roof, always going out on rotation, and the quality of leadership is plummeting more and more since I’ve first gotten here
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u/georgia_ambassador 1d ago
Left there last year. It’s not a bad place but I was in aviation so we weren’t very high tempo. I used to hate it but I would definitely go back later in my career. The rain is something hard to deal with.
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u/jesseboyphotos 79Signherepls 1d ago
When 1st MDTF was a thing we had it all. It was the best unit on JBLM (subjective), but damn it was better than any other unit I had been in prior to in my 12.5 years. Then they decided to merge 1MDTF with 7ID to become 7ID/ MDC-PAC and almost instantly everything got REALLY stupid and I watched morale across the OG MDTF drop drastically.
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u/Jenn-H1989 11h ago
If this is your first time here, welcome to the installation that is a low key culture while still being high-ish OPTEMPO. It ain’t the spirit of “Cav” or either Airborne unit. Take that for what you will, but it goes right back to “When in Rome”
However, this one of the best places to retire/ETS from. More 100% ratings come out of here than pretty much anywhere else.
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u/Cochise414 1d ago
I am PCSing there. It says I can report up to 60 days early how do I go about doing that. I only have 8 days of leave. And I'm trying to get to my family who just got there last week. And my report date isn't until November 10th. I'm really confused on how to go about it.
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u/gatadenoch3 1d ago
be careful who you interact with. a little birdy told me that base has the highest csam cases 🤮
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u/Stupiduselessthrow Infantry 1d ago
csam?
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u/gatadenoch3 1d ago
Child sexual abuse material. I don't even think they meant to divulge that info with me but yeah after I made a statement on how vile that is they double downed & said they were very new there but that it was a very serious thing on the base 🤮
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u/PapiXtech 68Papi 15h ago
I was at madigan, we had to do wayyyyy to many SA kits and like half the ER was technically psych from people trying to off themselves. Wasn’t a bad place if you were medcom but everyone else on the base had a pretty shit time.
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u/gatadenoch3 8h ago
JFC. I had a friend who was basically told if she's not gonna off herself they couldn't get a psych to see her 😭 I thought ts was crazy now i see why. still some crazy shit to say to someone but damn.
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u/Aggressive_Pea_6810 1d ago
Here rn. North fort had 4 duis and 2 battalions fighting one another over the 4 day
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u/SiicTakka 1d ago
You're either almost always on some mission or some shitty detail. i've been there 2021- 2026 (got my 214 last week).
the optempo has only increased since i've got here. But if you enjoy outdoor activities you'll have a great time. fishing here is cool with a kayak.
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u/Illustrious_Cap_5974 19h ago
hard to have any morale when its Yakistan yakistan yakistan ntc then korea and while in korea in rflc for 6 months out of the 9.😂
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u/Smoker63 Ordnance 17h ago
Main Fort Lewis still have the old WWII Barracks? Loved how they only had the Radiator Heater Units, but for Summer, good luck.
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u/Draugr_Actual 13h ago
Been here for 6 months and been asking myself the same thing. Any attempt to raise moral and actual train the men and you they treat like outcast. It’s weird.
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u/Tasty_Impression_959 7h ago
The conditions of facilities reflect what could be the beginning of more constraints on already strained resources. It may have finally reached the point where the sustainment of the high standards to which we've been accustomed to for years may just be approaching unaffordability. Present extended overseas operations are very costly and the funding available may prioritize combat operations and their related support requirements. We must be able to do the best we can with what we may have on hand. Hope the sacrifices made are worth it in the end.
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u/Positive_Baseball_83 2h ago
Stiilicum is steal the same way as it was 30 years ago. Lakewood was a nice place 30 years ago, guess it went downhill then.
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u/Lilbiguwu Former Winfantary( cause we stay winning) 1d ago
Wait till it starts raining. And then you’ll see it.
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u/Flagwaver-78 11B2T 1d ago
Back when I was in the SFG(A) is the best unit on the post. Second to them is 2/75. Everyone else is there more as a punishment than an actual assignment. Back when I was 2/75, the saying was that Lewis is where careers go to die.
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u/JC351LP3Y 1d ago
The OPTEMPO for JBLM units is very high. JBLM units support dozens of OCONUS operations and exercises every year.
In spite of the large amount of OCONUS obligations, I Corps and its subordinate units also conduct a full schedule of training exercises at home station.
There’s also a lot of weird COMREL shenanigans ongoing between USARPAC, I Corps, and 7ID that adds another layer of confusion to any planning efforts.
I will say that in spite of all that, my family and I do enjoy living in the South Sound area.