We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: bed bugs do not discriminate. Their latest victim? The few, the proud, the Marines. The US military has enough to worry about without bed bugs keeping them up at night, but that’s exactly what’s happening at a North Carolina Marine Corps base.
According to Marine Corps Times Marine Corps Times, Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point has been battling these six-legged vampires bugs in their barracks for over nine months now. Since their appearance in August 2013, there have been at least three reports of bed bug infestations in adjacent quarters of a growing number of Marine troops in December, January, and again in March, and now the pests have again returned to pay Cherry Point yet another visit.
It’s hard to pass bunk inspection when your sheets are crawling with these biting bedfellows, but officials on the base have been reasonably understanding when it come to bed bugs.
“Military barracks are closely inspected at least weekly for neatness and cleanliness,” First Lt. Hector Alejandro said. “These inspections also take into consideration that, as frequent world travelers, military personnel are at greater risk of unknowingly coming into contact with and transporting bedbugs.”When touring the world as they do, it’s certainly is a wonder that more Marine footlockers don’t wind up carrying these critters back to the barracks. When they do find their way home to the base, sleeping Marines are just as vulnerable to bed bugs as the rest of us; the itchy bites have been a problem for many of the men on the Cherry Point base.
One bed bug bitten Marine told the Times that after he had been relocated to new quarters, the Corps didn’t assist him much further with his problem. Eradicating the parasites from his bedding and gear he said has cost him a good deal of his own money, increasing his cause for headache.
When these men and women enlisted in the Marines, they probably didn’t expect that they’d end up battling bed bugs, but anyone can be susceptible to these critters. It sounds like the North Carolina base could use the professional services of their local bed bug experts!