Sen. Jon Ossoff released a report on July 8 documenting lead exposure in a newborn, mold-related emergency room visits, and a cockroach infestation living inside a family’s oven, all in privatized military housing at Fort Benning and Fort Stewart. Read it and you’d think it was written in 2022. It wasn’t. That’s the scandal: the Pentagon outsourced a duty of care to private landlords and never enforced the contracts meant to keep it intact.

Enable action by removing barriers. Phase five of John Kotter’s famous change model proves the most stubborn as Secretary Hegseth continues to reform and reimagine the Department of War from the ground up. The Department of War is no Augean Stables, but an underlying filth still hinders the ideal environment for molding America’s warriors. This rot is of the most insidious kind: legacy.