The US Defense Department said it is reviewing the way wounded service members are cared for at military hospitals following disclosures of shocking bureaucratic neglect. “There’s plenty of outrage,” said White House spokesman Tony Snow, responding to a Washington Post report citing bitter complaints from veterans at Walter Reed Army Medical Center outside Washington.
So “now” there is outrage because someone had the backbone to tell the public how their warriors are treated after doing their time in a war zone? Please, the system has been broken for years in the medical arena of the military. Just ask a retired vet from the last war.
But he said the army was carrying out an investigation of conditions at the hospital and that there should be no doubt about President George W. Bush’s commitment to veterans.
“The men and the women who have gone and fought for our country over there, they deserve the best care,” Snow said.
While you are doing this with Walter Reed, get someone to read the investigative article in Playboy about how the “administration” is redefining PTSD so less soldiers are diagnosed and sent back into the fight.
The Pentagon said reviews of medical care at the premier military hospitals, Walter Reed and the National Naval Medical Center, have been launched by the army and navy’s respective civilian chiefs.
An independent review group also will be formed to look into outpatient care and administrative process at the two hospitals. Source
Frankly, I’m not holding my breath on this. It will get swept under the rug eventually and unless news reporters stay on top of it, changes will stop and the soldiers will go back to being treated like those at homeless shelters.
In the US Senate, Democratic lawmakers said they were appalled and called for legislation that would require inspections and other measures designed to improve conditions at military hospitals.
“The brave men and women wounded at war should receive the best we have to offer and the highest quality of care,” said Democratic Senator Barack Obama, a presidential hopeful for the 2008 race and outspoken opponent of the Iraq war.
Obama and Senator Claire McCaskill said they would introduce a bill seeking to raise standards at military hospitals for returning soldiers wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan.
The proposed “legislation would cut red tape, improve service, and require frequent inspections of all active duty military hospitals,” Obama said in a statement.
Is it going to take the liberals to take care of our men and women returning from war better than they have been? Personally, I don’t care if Hillary Clinton herself stands at the entrance to Walter Reed and checks with every soldier to make sure they are being treated like human beings, if it takes a Democrat to fix this mess - then so be it. The treatment received by the military NOT hurt in battle is the same as noted in the original Washington Post article.
I’m glad the attention has been brought to the forefront about the awful treatment our soldiers receive. Let’s hope, and pray, that after they get done there, they branch out to the rest of the military.
- The Disgrace of Walter Reed
- Martin Army Hospital
March 5th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
You know it gets me in the guts! I am free because of thee! Our men and women suffer indignities every day in the Military hospitals and nursing homes. And I have always been an advocate. But just recently, my brother who was a POW and had abt. 10 or more medals, wounded in Vietnam, came stateside and went another tour, shot on duty as a MP on base went to surgery, they left scrapnel in him. It causes cancer. It goes into remission, goes into the hospital for stomach pain, of course by now he is an incomplete paraplegic, it took them so long to find that he had an intestinal blockage that his body began to starve itself and the cancer went rampant, he died less than 2 months later and that is suppose to be the end of the story. Walter Reed is pitiful, but because the conditions are pretty and clean, does not mean that there aren’t rats and black mold in other quarters. How about a man in WWII, lost his hearing, but because his wife got a divorce from a previous soldier and married him, he was turned down a pension until the details of the divorce could be investigated. Well that has been about 15 yearss and still can’t get through. There are so many wrongs. The President and all his men sat so pompous because the men and women, the foundation of who and what we are, have been giving their blood freely and this is what they get. I love my country too, but the price is way too high for those who actually serve it.