Wounded in Iraq, Neglected at Walter Reed
The Washington Post has a blockbuster of a story today about the travesty that the once proud Walter Reed Army Hospital has become because of the Iraq war.
The former crown jewel of military medicine has been transformed into a holding ground for physically and psychologically damaged outpatients, says the Post, and most of them still need treatment or await bureaucratic decisions before being discharged or returned to active duty.
I have used up my anger quotient for the time being, so I turn to Deb at Deb’s Web, who like me is a veteran, for some major venting:
How can this situation be tolerated? Why are our recovering soldiers living in conditions that rival the ghetto? In a third world country. I am deeply ashamed that we have failed those who did as they were ordered, giving life and limb for their country, only to be treated as annoyances and inconveniences upon their return. The Paris Hilton method of loyalty. Once broken, no longer needed.
I love this country, but lately have become concerned about our lack of human decency, of our inability to empathize with others, our bizarre belief that those who are not ‘perfect’ deserve to suffer. For the last week, this country and its media have been riveted by the story of one dead woman. As tragic as that may be for her family and friends, many others have suffered the same fate since then and have not been accorded one iota of attention. Many other families have been irrevocably altered by the events in Iraq and barely get a mention on their local news. Meanwhile, CNN and ABC want us to know that Britney’s drapes now match the carpet. What’s up with that?
Supporting the troops means more than a bumper sticker on your car. It means that you bug your Representatives, your Senators and your Governors until the troops get competent help. Perhaps the obstructionist Republicans will finally hear the people who elected them and start working with other members of Congress to do something constructive, instead of posturing and pandering about a war that is not supported by their constituents.
23 Responses to “Wounded in Iraq, Neglected at Walter Reed”
Walter Reed has always been a train wreck. If you look at the book “The Long Gray Line” is has stories about those injured in Vietnam and how bad the conditions are.
Of course, Walter Reed has the problem of being in the middle of a ghetto so it does not get the best employees and suffers from high turnover. The story did not mention that.
Superdestroyer makes an important point. While clearly this is outrageous and reforms must be made, the blogosphere response has been selective and political.
Walter Reed has been in existence for generations, and these conditions reflect long-standing problems. In fact, it may be said that societies in general have a tendency to dismiss their veterans (Kipling commented on this best, I believe).
Yet, notice the political aspect of Deb’s response:
“It means that you bug your Representatives, your Senators and your Governors until the troops get competent help. Perhaps the obstructionist Republicans will finally hear the people who elected them and start working with other members of Congress to do something constructive…”
I.E. This is a “Republican” scandal, and by God the Democrats would not have allowed this to occur. This is generally reflected in the the blogs comments of outrage from the Left on this issue.
I have posted comments here at TMV about the Code Pink demostrators outside Walter Reed every Friday, “supporting the troops” with coffins and pictures of multilated soldiers while the wounded vets leave and return from dinner on buses. This has been extremely traumatizing to the soldiers.
Yet, how many liberals have been outraged about this? Nada. Not a single left blog has even referenced it.
Much like the deafening silence from the Left over Arkin’s reference in the WaPo blog about troops being “mercenaries”. Only one diary on KOS about this, and that supported Arkin (though commentors noted it was not a smart thing politically to say).
An important post, and an important issue. Given that these problems at Walter Reed have been ongoing for decades, the discovery of this “treason” by the Left is clearly “selective” at best.
When I said “Republican” I was referring to ridiculous manner in which they would rather hold party lines than represent their constituents. This is not a political issue, it is a humanitarian issue, it is an ethical issue, it is a moral issue.
The article clearly states that after five and a half years that things are at the breaking point. That breaking point being our injured troops.
Walter Reed is supposed to be staffed with a majority of military medical personnel, who are also overworked and overdeployed. My intent was to point out that these soldiers have been abandoned. I could care less who did it, it was and always will be, WRONG!
But you have to admit, it is the Republican side of the aisle who have consistently voted against increasing funds for the veterans, active military and anything that could help the troops readjust to society.
You can stick your head in the sand and make noise so you don’t have to face reality, but these guys are forced to live with your decision and lack of support. Every day. Exactly what are you doing to support the troops? Besides trying to make it a partisan issue?
Deb,
Most of the care given at WRAMC is provide by civilian employees. Also, muchof the adminstrative work such as the Physical Disability Board is run by civil servants.
Walter Reed suffers from a huge number of problems that make it the least desired placed to be assigned inside the Army Medical Department.
Walter Reed is located in a tough section of NE Washington, DC. It has a very high turn over of civil servants. It is isolated in a place that makes it very unsafe to walk anywhere in the general area. The place is lacking parking and thus force the ow level employees to use public transportation.
The NCO’s assigned to companies like the referred to medical hold are the least desired positions in the Army. Thus, the worst sergeants are assigned to them.
It should not surprise anyone that in a city that cannot plow the snow, fix the boilers in its public schools, or solve most of its murder cases is not going to be able to run a hospital.
If you look at the nearest civilian hospitals to Walter Reed in the DC area, Howard, Providence, Greater Southeast, and Prince Georges are all poorly run hospitals that are going broke.
Deb said: “it is a humanitarian issue, it is an ethical issue, it is a moral issue.”
I agree completely.
Looking at the treatment of veterans in a historical lens, I don’t think much will be done.
I was noting the selective nature of the outrage from the Left on this issue, and their silence on other issues of support for the troops. I also recall Republicans ripping into the Clinton adminstration over pay and more than per forma support for veterans.
The only veterans who were treated decently, that comes to mind, were those after the Second World War. The treatment of WW I veterans was disgraceful…the Korean vets often forgotten…Vietnam…well….
I don’t think anything lasting will be done about this unless it is bipartisan. To be frank, I don’t think anything will be done.
Kipling expressed this idea best in his poem “Tommy”. The fact that we are still discussing this issue generations later is indicative of the reality Kipling described…that our societies treat veterans disgracefully on the whole – and that their welfare will be used and discarded for partisan purposes (how many on the Left will care about Walter Reed under President Obama?).
From Kipling’s “Tommy“:
“You talk o’ better food for us, an’ schools, an’ fires, an’ all:
We’ll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don’t mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow’s Uniform is not the soldier-man’s disgrace.
For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Chuck him out, the brute!”
But it’s “Saviour of ‘is country” when the guns begin to shoot;
An’ it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ anything you please;
An’ Tommy ain’t a bloomin’ fool — you bet that Tommy sees!”
Just a quick explanation of Kipling, for those whose English lit courses are a distant memory…
In a lot of his poems he does dialect. In particular, variations on cockney dialect, given the working class origins of British troops.
The “Widow’s Uniform” is not a reference to dead soldiers but to Queen Victoria…popularly known at the time as the “Widow of Windsor” as she wore black and lived in seclusion for decades after her husband’s death.
I was also struck by the fact that, as Kipling’s poem suggests, over a century ago British war veterans were cynical about promises from politicians about their care. The more things change, the more they remain the same…
DD and Marlowecan -
Give it up. This is an argument you cannot win with logic, facts or history.
At this moment in time, anything bad is the direct fault of Bush and the Republicans, regardless of how many years or generations any given problem has been in existence. Anything good is not news, unless attributable to the Democrats.
AustinRoth,
I do not blame politics for any of the problems at Walter Reed. The problem is inherent to the ways that the federal government operates inside the Beltway.
I would love to hear how an Obama/Clinton Administration would make the GS-7 clerks at Walter Reed do their jobs better?
[...] Others annoyed:Debsweb and Moderate Voice. [...]
Let’s see Austin. One in 17 people being treated currently at Walter Reed is actually in patient. One in 17.
Care to pick a point in history where that was the case in the past?
Or SuperDestroyer? Do you think that, at the height of Vietnam, there were 17 outpatients in rented hotels or apartments, for every in patient?
SD,
Those G-7 clerks aren’t responsible for enough facilities not being built or leased. Neither are they repsonsible for the budgeting decisions of the last six years that didn’t account for the number of patients that this war combined with what’s left of our operations in Afghanistan would produce.
Of course, Walter Reed has the problem of being in the middle of a ghetto so it does not get the best employees and suffers from high turnover. The story did not mention that.
Actually, SD, I live in the Washington area, and I can tell you that several nationally renowned hospitals – Washington Hospital Center and Children’s National Medical Center are in poor, black areas. The staffing, facilities and treatment at both are exceptional. While I was never a patient at Walter Reed, I don’t think you can blame its “ghetto” location for its problems. You know the Smithsonian, the Washington Monument, the National Archives,the National Zoo, The White House, Catholic University, the Capitol, and many other landmarks are in Washington. Like any other large urban area, there are problems with crime and poverty, but its still a great city, even though all of those Democrats live here.
Hmm, let me get this straight. Just because we have a Republican president, had a Republican majority in Congress that rode roughshod over the minority party …and gloated about it, and a President who hasn’t attended one single funeral, that’s no reason to think that they are responsible for the current situation? If not them, then who? So what if the Democrats voted for something that was already going to pass?
The fact of the matter is, that no matter how you spin it, no matter who you blame or don’t blame, innocent troops are paying another high price and they don’t deserve it. Health care should be a top priority, because with war, comes injuries. But that little fact continues to escape those who aren’t personally
concerned.
This time, it’s about the troops! Or don’t you care? Are you just in this for the argument and oneupmanship? Quit trying to place blame and decide that first thing Tuesday morning, you are going to confront one of your representatives and make them aware that this is unacceptable and that you will continue to do so until things change for the better. That our troops shouldn’t have to keep paying over and over again, for our incompetence. That our troops deserve better.
Is that too much to ask?
kritter
Actually, if you look at the _ress-ganey scores for patients at WHC, they are terrible. WHC has also had huge problems getting nurses to drive into the “ghetto” in order to staff the hospital. The last president of WHC resort to importing huge numbers of filipino nurses who did not know what a crappy neighborhood WHC was located in.
Jim,
The GS-7 clerks are the ones who process and file the disability claims. If they do not care about their job and continually lose the files, the process grinds to a halt. If the diability claims are not processed, then the injuried service members are left hanging around waiting for the processing.
I just remembered that the Commander at WRAMC is not responsible for the processing but that it is done by a different group.
If the turn over in the clerks and adminstrators is also very high, it becomes very hard to be efficient at processing the disability claims.
I would love to hear how you would propose making civil servants into a fast, efficent organization. No one in DC has ever been able to do it.
WHC also suffers from turn over in physicians because the patients of many physicians just do not want to drive into the bad parts of DC for their healthcare. That is one of the reasons that INOVA in northern Virginia is growing much faster than WHC is.
Deb,
What do you think the Democratic minority would have done if the Bush Administration had proposed suspending civil service regulations at WRAMC, or suspending minority set aside contracting at WRAMC, or proposed privitizing much of the workforce? The Democrats would have screamed bloody murder. Unless you are willing to change the rules, WRMAC is continue to be the train wreck it has been for decades.
If throwing money at a problem in DC fixed the problem, the DC public schools would have been fixed long ago. You have to realize that WRAMC faces almost exactly the same problems that the DC public schools, to DC Metro, or the DC criminals system faces.
I’m sorry, I’m still waiting for constructive action, not money. I don’t recall ever saying anything about money. I don’t live in DC, I am a military brat as well as a Veteran and I am at a loss trying to understand why the troops aren’t getting appropriate treatment and we’re arguing about …what the minority party would do? I don’t know, why don’t you ask them?
Remember the San Antonio VA facilty was supposed to be elsewhere. W and the Congress only funded $6 million. The Fisher family, Don Imus and Avon raised $50 million to build a VA facitilty that the W/Brownie administartion dragged their feet on.
The inaugral ball sure was supporting the troops….
What about the ARMY. It’s their hospital, it is primarily their patients. What, is the Army getting a bye on this? They managed to keep their voices low during Rumsfeld’s reign, why don’t they speak out now? Some Major General’s public hand wringing doesn’t do a thing for the troops at Walter Reed. They are all troops at Walter Reed, patients or not. Fire the MG if he can’t keep up. The patients are still soldiers, the ARMY needs to take care of them.
SD- My husband was a nurse there for many years, and believe me it is not about the neighborhood, it is about money. They brought the filipino nurses in, because it was cheaper. WHC has one of the best cardiac units in the country , and a state of the art surgery unit. Are you trying to tell me you could get better care at a hospital in the suburbs? Because its just not true.
Wounded in Iraq, Neglected at Walter Reed…
…
A copule of things that the article skipped over.
1. The commander of Walter Reed Army Medical Center does not control the barracks or Mologne House. The Army went through a reorganization a couple of years ago and created Installation Management Command (originally Installation Management Agency) was created to operate things like barracks, housing, personnel offices, gyms, etc. Thus, the MG who commands the hospitals (actually commands the Walter Reed system) cannot directly affect the barracks.
2. The physical evaluation board is also not controlled by the commanding general at Walter Reed. If the Physical Evalaution Board is slow, all the WRAMC commander can do is complain like everyone else.
The problems at Walter Reed are much more about how government functions, about the problems inherent to operating in ghetto and in DC, and the problems inherent to operating inside the government’s rules.
Anyone who claims that having Clinton in the White House would fix all of the problems is doing nothing more than carrying water for the Democrats.
marlowe- I think just to assume that because the problems at Walter Reed have persisted for years and it is in a bad location and it is run by the government, that nothing can be done by an incoming administration to change the situation is a false argument. All along this administration has portrayed itself as supportive of the troops. Yet a deeper look shows that throughout the war those troops were sent into battle without the necessary protective equipmrnt. Even those who are now being deployed for the surge will have to endure a shortage of truck armor, and so will be more vulnerable to roadside bombs.
If the GOP is so supportive of the troops, they should be sending them in with the right equipment and training, and making sure that our veterans are taken care of. I have not seen evidence that that is their priority.
It’s a horrorstory. Hundreds of billions for the war in Iraq, and the wounded troops are shortchanged? Scandalous.
You have all bought into the responsibility scatter scam. Immediately followed by the “Let’s point fingers at the politicians” scam. Roll some heads. Start with the ineffective, hand wringing Major General. He doesn’t have responsibility because he doesn’t WANT responsibility. It is so much easier to just shrug his shoulders and say, “Hey, mon, is no my yob.” So, who’s job is it? Fire him! AND the Major General. This must be changed. We’re talking about soldiers who are being treated like crap. This is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!