Lance Cpl. Jimmie McClelland eyed the deep hole in the wall.
The 322-square-foot room in the 1st Combat Readiness Regiment Supply Company barracks on Camp Pendleton is his home, and he wanted it to look good, but more importantly, feel comfortable.
So, recently, as part of a joint effort between the I Marine Expeditionary Force and Marine Corps Installation-West bases that incorporates self-help tasks in an effort to make Marines and sailors more comfortable and boost productivity in their military jobs, McClelland, 24, of Aurora, Colorado, spent a day this week patching and resealing the hole.
Dubbed the Barracks 360 Reset, the initiative is now in its third phase and includes western bases in Twentynine Palms, Miramar and Yuma. The project rolled out at Camp Pendleton last year and since then, Marines and sailors have completed more than 8,500 projects and more than 4,500 work orders across 13 clusters of barracks on the base.
The effort was initiated as part of Barracks 2030, when under Gen. Eric Smith, commandant of the Marine Corps, the service branch undertook its largest infrastructure investment to modernize barracks and improve the quality of life for Marines. That effort began with a wall-to-wall inspection of the service’s more than 60,000 barracks rooms in early 2024.
In all, Camp Pendleton has 13,602 rooms, but only 11,692 were usable and only 2,393 met the commandant’s new standards, officials said.
“Taking care of Marines is a warfighting function. Otherwise, they cannot focus on the mission at hand,” Smith said when initiating the effort in 2024.
With the new directive, leaders at Camp Pendleton decided to get ahead and figure out how they would apply the concept to their base and nearby West Coast bases.
“There’s only so much we can do, the service has to take it the rest of the way. But we wanted to have a proactive initiative orienting toward the commandant’s vision,” said Lt. Col. Robert Hillary, who is the lead planner for the barracks reset plan.
If a room doesn’t meet minimum habitability standards, Hillary said a service member has the right to refuse the room. On the flip side, they also have responsibilities, so if they damage something, they can be held financially liable, he said.
“It teaches them life skills, something they may have to deal with when they get older,” he said. “That’s formal now. When a Marine signs for a room, they inspect it, and they do the same when they check out.”
To get the plan going, Hillary said all the barracks on the base were assessed. Some were declared uninhabitable and are scheduled for demolition. Mold, drywall holes and plumbing issues were among the most common.
Planners also recognized that they could use “Marine power” to help, Hillary said.
In the first phases, engineers from the Marines and Navy helped out with repairs. Marines trained in doing a “self-help” project served as project leaders where they trained others who didn’t know how to do basic drywall repair, lock replacement and mildew removal.
McClelland, a veteran of the earlier phases, is one of those Marines who is now teaching others in his barracks. He knew exactly how to make the hole in his room look as if it had never been there.
The skill is one he learned from his father before joining the Marines, he said. The result, he added, is creating a place he’s proud to call home.
“This is home for me,” he said. “With all the stress from work, it kinda helps destress because it’s something I did with my dad. It makes your room look good, so you feel good.”
Marines and sailors are making thousands of repairs at the base during a two-week surge this month that also includes replacing lighting, installing air conditioning units, renovating hangout rooms and restriping sports courts. Projects beyond their skills are completed by public works teams.
As part of the program, Marines can now scan a QR code in their rooms to initiate a service request.
“A lot of us are eager to learn, especially when it comes to doing it the right way,” McClelland said.
Most of the barracks at Camp Pendleton and other MCI-West bases are between 12 and 40 years old. Many were in need of a refresh, but the Department of Defense prioritized funding elsewhere and the facilities remained in disrepair and contributed to lower morale among the troops, Marine officials said.
The quality of the barracks also helps with retention and recruiting new servicemembers, officials argue.
Sgt. Maj. Carlos Granados, with the 1st Combat Readiness Regiment and who has 27 years in the Marines, applauds the effort and says he has seen a dramatic improvement in tidiness and a boost in morale for Marines.
“This is their sanctuary, we expect a lot from the Marines,” Granados, who is from Calexico, said. “My job is to make sure their rooms and the building is safe, secure and habitable. I need to make sure they have running water, cold, hot, and some A/C. That way they can refit and do their job again tomorrow. If those things are not met, a Marine is tired. We expect 100%. They work 10- to 12-hour days.”
Granados, who has held a series of leadership and combat roles and deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, said the Corps has done a lot over his time to help with setting the Marines up for success, adding that when he was in the barracks, he had a “scratchy wool blanket and 18 inches of white.”
Now, Marines and sailors can personalize their rooms as long as the decor doesn’t violate military standards. At least several rooms in the barracks he oversees had comfy bed quilts, soft blankets, stuffed toys and unique pillows during a recent tour.
“As long as it looks clean,” he said, adding that the Marines are also learning discipline from room inspections that are scheduled now on Mondays and Fridays.
It used to be, Granados said, when rooms were inspected on Thursday, they ended up being trashed from Friday on.
“It’d be ‘Party’s on’,” he said. “They’d enjoy themselves, pizza boxes everywhere, till Thursday. Now, I said we do field days on Mondays and inspect them again on Friday, that way, the whole week, there’s consistency.”
Granados said he has seen the junior Marines, typically ages 18 to 24, have more buy-in overall, “have pride and want to stay in the Marines.”
One recent morning, Lance Cpl. Andrew Leverton, 20, of Albany, Texas, and Lance Cpl. Jespher Estudillo, 20, from Maui, Hawaii, were cleaning a shower with significant mildew between the tiles. To get it out, they had to break out the caulking and put in new. Neither had done work like that before, but said they liked learning a skill they could use in the future.
“It just makes it a lot more comfortable for the Marines coming off a hard day of work that the simple things like a light when they’re using the bathroom or showering work,” Leverton said. “No one wants to come off work and deal with more problems.”
After the first two phases of the barracks reset, Hillary said the number of Camp Pendleton barracks passing the new criteria has gone up by 47% and there are now 5,459 rooms that meet the mark.
Among those appreciating his new modernized digs is Cpl. Caleb McMahan, 22, from St. Louis, has been in his room since January. He’s personalized his side of the room — there are two to a barracks room — and has a carburetor box on the wall, a nod to his hobby of repairing old cars. He also had some stuffed toys on his Star Wars comforter, a Marine Corps flag, some wall posters, and a pair of lobster sandals sitting on the rug in front of his bed.
McMahan has helped with repair projects and said being part of the barracks’ initiative has shown him its effect on his fellow service members and on their ability to do their jobs.
“They start to care more when their quality of life in the barracks room is better,” he said. “It changes their perspective. Retention, I think, improves as well.”
“I can work a long day, come back, play video games, read, whatever I want; it makes me feel better about it,” he said, adding that it would make him want to reenlist. “The pride of it all, being a part of the Marine Corps as a whole.”