Downsizing Barracks

Since the army is cutting back, they must be downsizing their facilities. How much smaller do they have to make a barracks before it becomes a barrack?

———- from Edward Horton of Everett, OR

It depends on pork barrel politics and whether we finally get around to going metric. If the state in which the barracks is located has a senator on a powerful appropriations committee, then the barracks will probably be enlarged while being reduced, something that happens quite often in government. The average soldier’s bunk used to size in at six feet, but the new metric bunks that are being imported from France are two meters long. This could be a significant difference, although it will take a year-long study by outside consultants to determine the exact nature and possible significance of that difference.