William Gibson describes life at Borden with nuance

Good afternoon, all.

My name is William Gibson.

Last place I served was the Fighting 69th Unit, not too far from here.

What you would call, they would say, they would call me the NBC, the NBC guy.

I'm the chemical operations specialist for the Army.

I would like to say that beauty is subjective and there's nuance to everything.

And I say that because I currently stay at boarding and I've been there for a little while.

I had to go through numerous personal challenges while being there.

I've been to nine funerals since I've been in boarding.

Family, friends, and also one of those was including my father who died last year.

I would like to say that.

Thank you.

I would like to say that.

Yes, boarding does need help.

There's improvements that should be made.

The building needs to be fixing.

You know, the food needs help, yes.

But there's nuance to everything.

The library, you know, we have access to the library, but when there's a group going on being that that's the public place, then it's closed off for that group to commence.

After the group is over, then the library is open back to the public, but it's also closed overnight.

Because the rec room in the cafeteria open for everybody to hang out at overnight and watch TV and talk and do things.

There's nuance to everything.

There's good soldiers and bad soldiers.

To the rules of eating, we're not allowed to bring food in.

And if you do, there's the blue room that's off to the side, which is a small little space.

You can eat there, but you can't go no further than there.

Once again, there's nuance to everything.

With the staff being there.

It's a two-way street.

You have to meet with the staff.

They put out notices, appointment slips.

There's even, you know, slips that come out and say, hey, when they're going to do a room check.

So there's an accountability there that's also on the residents.

Keep your place clean.

Keep everything dressed right, as we would say in the military.

But that ain't the case with a lot of people.

And this is not to put everybody on front street, but accountability can go both ways.

You know, the staff can't chase us all down and have us meet with them.

Now, me, when I first got there, I was very silent because you don't know how to speak to anybody.

About your situation.

But while being there, I've had time to self-examine me, my life.

And now I have a team that's working with me.

And when I need to talk, they let me know that I can talk, which I'm still trying to get used to accepting that because I'm used to doing everything on my own.

But I would say y'all as the political chair that you vet all your information wisely.

You check out the place and vet it wisely.

You listen to the complaints wisely.

You watch what ICO do wisely because that's your job, the vet.

And you should be checking out everything, just not a little small pocket of things saying that's that.

No, check out everything.

Try to get a good look at the place when it's running during its regular operation.

Then you'll get to see the full picture.

You know, so there's good and bad at boarding.

Yes.

Good and bad.

And yet there's a lot of things that needs to be fixed and worked on.

And when it comes to staff, yeah, they're not perfect.

But at the same time, you know, we have to do our part as well.

So it's a two-way street inside.

And I just hope that, you know,

You have to learn to listen to understand, not listen to respond.

Because listening is truly a skill.

Also, watching and seeing what's going on.