Note: When I created this post, it was right after the SGM came out of the computer room cussing up a blue streak. He had just read the article referenced and told me to go read it. Needless to say my blood was boiling right afterward. This post was created, but I saved it for some time this week.
Andi from Andi’s World posted about it too, with a different perspective - as she’s been to Walter Reed. Do I agree with her? On some points; however, I have no faith in the way the military is dealt with in this situation, so going in without them knowing is fine with me. Otherwise they would have probably only seen the shiney penny side of the issue.
I will ask that after you read my post - go read Andi’s. Fair is Fair.
Read On ….
I am no fan of the military medical system. Three years active duty and 14+ years of marriage to a soldier will teach you quickly that if you want good, even great, medical treatment, you will not get it from the military.
It appears that the supposedly “best” military hospital we have on US soil isn’t any better. From the Washington Post, via MSNBC.com, comes an article titled, “At Mologne House, a struggle to recover,” subtitled “War survivors wrestle with military bureaucracy, personal demons“.
The guests of Mologne House have been blown up, shot, crushed and shaken, and now their convalescence takes place among the chandeliers and wingback chairs of the 200-room hotel on the grounds of Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
Oil paintings hang in the lobby of this strange outpost in the war on terrorism, where combat’s urgency has been replaced by a trickling fountain in the garden courtyard. The maimed and the newly legless sit in wheelchairs next to a pond, watching goldfish turn lazily through the water.
But the wounded of Mologne House are still soldiers — Hooah! — so their lives are ruled by platoon sergeants. Each morning they must rise at dawn for formation, though many are half-snowed on pain meds and sleeping pills.
In Room 323 the alarm goes off at 5 a.m., but Cpl. Dell McLeod slumbers on. His wife, Annette, gets up and fixes him a bowl of instant oatmeal before going over to the massive figure curled in the bed. An Army counselor taught her that a soldier back from war can wake up swinging, so she approaches from behind.
“Dell,” Annette says, tapping her husband. “Dell, get in the shower.”
“Dell!” she shouts.
Finally, the yawning hulk sits up in bed. “Okay, baby,” he says. An American flag T-shirt is stretched over his chest. He reaches for his dog tags, still the devoted soldier of 19 years, though his life as a warrior has become a paradox. One day he’s led on stage at a Toby Keith concert with dozens of other wounded Operation Iraqi Freedom troops from Mologne House, and the next he’s sitting in a cluttered cubbyhole, at Walter Reed, fighting the Army for every penny of his disability.
McLeod, 41, has lived at Mologne House for a year while the Army figures out what to do with him. He worked in textile and steel mills in rural South Carolina before deploying. Now he takes 23 pills a day, prescribed by various doctors at Walter Reed. Crowds frighten him. He is too anxious to drive. When panic strikes, a soldier friend named Oscar takes him to Baskin-Robbins for vanilla ice cream.
“They find ways to soothe each other,” Annette says.
Mostly what the soldiers do together is wait: for appointments, evaluations, signatures and lost paperwork to be found. It’s like another wife told Annette McLeod: “If Iraq don’t kill you, Walter Reed will.” (emphasis mine)
I prayed every day for the SGM to come home alive and “in one piece” while he was in Afghanistan, because knowing how he would be cared for after he returned home with injuries was more than I could stomach. I cannot put him on my insurance at work, so saved as much money as I could “just in case” we had to use the doctor’s in the civilian world to get him good treatment for whatever may happen. Fortunately, and thank you God, he came back okay.
Frankly, I’m not surprised that the soldiers are treated this way. The military medical community that I have witnessed are disrespectful, uncaring, and just plain bored with the whole thing. They are not in fear of losing their jobs - no matter how great or awful care they provide, they still go home at night knowing they have a paycheck coming.
Add this to the article I read in Playboy last month about how PTSD is being “Redefined” by the military community so less and less people are diagnosed, so as to save “money”, this article didn’t surprise me.
I don’t expect any better from our Military Hosptials or Medical Community.
They just don’t care.
… Now go read Andi’s post “Let’s Discuss “The Other Walter Reed”“
- Walter Reed Probe
- Martin Army Hospital
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