On reporting I was told “bad news, we are desperately short of junior officers so you are Duty Officer tonight”. Shit…
I moved my gear into my room, and then chased down the outgoing Duty Officer to get a handover brief. He gave me details of the base layout, current situation etc, then he said “and watch out for the Barrack Rats”.
I asked him what he meant, and he told me of a strange situation. The Other Ranks (think Enlisted Men) had accommodation inside the base. This wasn’t unusual. However this accommodation had been sold to an external contractor, and the soldiers had private rental agreements with the contractor. As such they were in a sort of limbo status, like Guantanamo Bay. Technically they were on base and under my authority, but legally they were private dwellings. I was advised to go easy on enforcing my rights inside the rooms. And as private dwellings the soldiers had the right to take “guests” home.
An alarming number of unemployed young girls had taken up residency in these rooms, and wandered freely about the base. These were the Barrack Rats. They had no real reason to ever leave the base. It had bars, a cinema, supermarket, even a bank. Their unemployment payments went straight into the bank, and the cost of living on base was subsidized (the cheapest beer in the land for instance). And of course there was a huge number of very fit and very horny men trapped inside.
What really shocked me was the attitude of the soldiers to the girls, and the morals of the girls themselves. Most of the girls were some sort of communal property, to be loaned and traded at will. Apparently girls were left as deposit when soldiers borrowed friends cars (often to visit their real girlfriends). Girls were thrown out of rooms and hunted through the barracks to find another “host”.
And worst of all girls were used to try to “trap” young officers like myself. They would openly flirt with you as walked through the base, they would “accidentally” appear half naked on the landing floors etc.
I could never work out if it was some sordid exploitation of homeless girls, or some wonderful free love environment functioning inside a military society.