NEWSPAPER FORCES PENTAGON TO NOTICE NEGLECTED WAR-WOUNDED
They suffer from brain injuries, severed arms and legs, organ and back damage, and various degrees of post-traumatic stress. Their legions have grown so exponentially--they outnumber hospital patients at Walter Reed 17 to 1--that they take up every available bed on post and spill into dozens of nearby hotels and apartments leased by the Army. The average stay is 10 months, but some have been stuck there for as long as two years…
… Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va), who headed the House Government Reform Committee, which investigates problems at Walter Reed and other Army facilities, said, "…There's vast appreciation for soldiers, but there's a lack of focus on what happens to them," when they return. "It's awful."
…One case manager was so disgusted, she brought roach bombs for the rooms. Mouse traps are handed out. It doesn't help that soldiers there subsist on carry-out food because the hospital cafeteria is such a hike on cold nights. They make do with microwaves and hot plates…
…"I hate it," said Spec. George Romero, 25…"There are cockroaches. The elevator doesn't work. The garage door doesn't work. Sometimes there's no heat, no water…I talked to doctors and medical staff. They just said you kind of get used to the outside world…My platoon sergeant said, 'Suck it up.'"
--"Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration at Army's Top Medical Facility," Dana Priest and Anne Hull, Washington Post, February 18, 2007
The conflict in Iraq has hatched a virtual town of desperation and dysfunction, clinging to the pilings of Walter Reed. The wounded are socked away for months and years in random buildings and barracks in and around this military post…
Bomb blasts are the most common cause of injury in Iraq, and nearly 60 percent of the blast victims also suffer from traumatic brain injury, according to Walter Reed's studies, which explains why some at Mologne House wander the hallways trying to remember their room numbers.
Some soldiers and Marines have been here for 18 months or longer. Doctor's appointments and evaluations are routinely dragged out and difficult to get…
--"Hotel Aftermath: Inside Mologne House, the Survivors of War Wrestle with Military Bureaucracy and Personal Demons," Anne Hull and Dana Priest, Washington Post, February 19, 2007
For the past three years, Michael J. Wagner directed the Army's largest effort to help the most vulnerable soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. His office in Room 3E01 of the world-renowned hospital was supposed to match big-hearted donors with thousands of wounded soldiers who could not afford to feed their children, pay mortgages, buy plane tickets or put up visiting families in nearby hotels.
But while he was being paid to provide this vital service to patients, outpatients and their relations, Wagner was also seeking funders and soliciting donations for his own new charity, based in Texas, according to documents and interviews with current and former staff members. Some families also said Wagner treated them callously and made it hard for them to receive assistance.
--"Hospital Investigates Former Aid Chief: Walter Reed Official Had Own Charity," Dana Priest and Anne Hull, Washington Post, February 20, 2007
If you listen to the PR operation at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the U.S. military's gleaming flagship hospital offers veterans the best treatment available. What doesn't get mentioned is the bureaucratic contempt and physical squalor that too often await badly injured outpatient soldiers on the Walter Reed campus, the subject of a four-month Post investigation detailed in articles published Sunday and Monday.
Reporters Dana Priest and Anne Hull and researcher Julie Tate spent hundreds of hours inspecting conditions and interviewing injured troops and their loved ones at Walter Reed outpatient facilities. Their findings: Veteran's rooms were rank; bureaucratic hassles and paper-pushing make the process of repairing buildings, redressing patient grievances and providing veterans with basic goods depressingly distressing, many veterans leave Walter Reed without the compensation they clearly deserve for their sacrifices.
The walls of one soldier's room were covered with black mold, and the ceiling of his shower had a large hole. Soldiers who lost their uniforms while undergoing emergency treatment on the battlefield have had to present their purple hearts to get replacement clothes. Amputees and patients on taxing drug regimens are required to report for formation early in the morning, even if it means trudging over accumulated ice and snow. ..
Most infuriating are reports of official efforts to deny disability benefits to discharged fighters…lowball settlements may leave soldiers and their families impoverished for life.
--"Rotten Homecoming: This is No Way to Treat a Veteran," editorial, Washington Post, February 21, 2007
First of all, just let me say: GOD BLESS REPORTERS DANA PRIEST, ANNE HULL, AND RESEARCHER JULIE TATE--and the WASHINGTON POST.
I hope they receive the Pulitzer Prize for this groundbreaking--and heartbreaking--story about the TRUE fate that awaits those brave men and women who leave parts of their bodies and brains--as well as blood, sweat, and tears--behind in the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Not so photo-oppy, is it? But then, reality and truth--as opposed to politics and propaganda--seldom are.
The Washington Post and its fine reporters have done exactly what a free press in a functioning democracy SHOULD do--tear back the pretty-colored government band-aids to reveal the gaping wounds of truth hidden beneath.
When I first started to read this series on conditions for so many of our war-wounded right there within television-camera distance from the White House, it made me, literally, sick to my stomach. I didn't even show the articles to my combat-vet husband because I knew it would upset him too much, nor will I show them to my combat-vet, active-duty Marine son.
There is so much to take in. Printed up, the first two articles, alone, ran nine pages apiece.
Page after page of documented cases--quoted by name and rank--of horrifying neglect, dreary, daily misery, families under almost unimaginable stress, and war-wounded soldiers kicked to the curb with virtually no benefits or protections.
In the Post editorial, the case of Cpl. Dell McLoud was recounted:
The Army tried to deny disability compensation to Cpl. Dell McLoud, who suffered a head injury that left him aimless and unable even to count change at the cafeteria. Army officials' argument: Because he had done poorly in high school, his current mental state might not have been caused by the steel door that smashed his skull in Iraq.
The only way these reporters were able to get this true story was by simply not telling the Army that they were doing it. They knew that if they went through official channels, they'd be sent to the show-case wards at Walter Reed where amputees are first taken--sparkling, state of the art facilities that are nothing less than what our men and women deserve.
But here, as Paul Harvey would say, is the REST OF THE STORY.
After a few weeks, when they are wheelchair-bound but not yet fitted for prosthetics, when their claims are being processed, they are assigned to housing there on the base, in buildings scattered far and wide over the campus.
And there, basically, they are left to rot.
The thing is, the U.S. military was not and has not been, prepared for the FLOOD of wounded from this war. Fully ninety percent of war-injuries are survived, and patients missing as much as three limbs, or half their brains, are sent to U.S. military facilities to recuperate.
Not since the Vietnam war has the system been so overwhelmed, only back then, they had TEN TIMES the staff available to handle it.
Now, it's nothing but a bottle-necked nightmare. Mologne House, which was mentioned in the second article of the series, was built only a few short years ago, primarily as a nice hotel that was to be used to house family members of wounded soldiers and Marines, as well as the disabled vets who were retired.
But Iraq and Afghanistan sent so many waves and waves of grievously wounded troops that soon the hotel was completely given over to house them. At least those who live there don't have to deal with cockroaches and black mold.
However, even though all of them had suffered terrible wounds--some traumatic brain injuries--and all were suffering varying degrees of post traumatic stress, the Army refused to allow psychologists or even social workers on the premises.
Consequently, there have been suicides and cases of drug overdoses and even alcohol poisoning as despairing and desperate war-wounded take their own lives.
At any of dozens of other buildings on the premises, the squalor is horrifying enough, but these guys are still in the Army. They are expected to "fall out" at 5:30 a.m. for formation. They have to make their way over ice-covered sidewalks on crutches and in wheelchairs, zonked out on medication, to report for duty.
When their uniforms are slashed off of them by medics in the battlefield, they then have nothing to wear in the hospital. They manage to make do with sweats and tee shirts, but in at least one case, an amputee was refused permission to attend the memorial service of a good friend who was killed in Iraq because he did not have a uniform to wear to the event.
Others have to prove that they are even IN the Army, especially if their paperwork gets lost, which it frequently does. Some have to bring photographs of their time in combat, or show their medals, in order to have access to basic facilities.
And that does not even approach the vast numbers who are being refused lifetime access to medical care. In an obvious attempt the cut spending, time and time again, the grievously wounded are kicked to the curb.
According to the Army Times, one 20-year old soldier--who has a titanium plate in his skull to replace missing pieces from a bomb blast that also ruptured his spleen, tore out his colon, and tore away the ligaments from his knee--was turned down for medical benefits post-discharge.
One case of thousands.
GEORGE W. BUSH SAYS HE DID NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS UNTIL THE ARTICLES APPEARED IN THE PAPER, BUT IN HIS PAST THREE BUDGETS--ALL RUBBER-STAMPED BY A REPUBLICAN CONGRESS--THE V.A. BUDGET HAS BEEN SLASHED BY TEN PERCENT--THAT'S A 30-PERCENT CUT IN FUNDS TO THE V.A.--JUST WHEN THE WAR-WOUNDED ARE SWELLING ITS RANKS BY THE THOUSANDS.
When the reporters interviewed Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman, commander at Walter Reed, he said that one of the reasons the claims were being dragged out as long as they were, was so that the Army could hold onto soldiers as long as possible, "because this is the first time this country has fought a war for so long with an all-volunteer force since the Revolution."
Bush and the Pentagon are scrambling to cover their asses on this one, and although they all say they HAD NO IDEA UNTIL IT APPEARED IN THE PAPER, the truth is that, as of March, 2006, a Government Accountability Office report documented many of these same outrages, according to the Army Times.
So somebody, somewhere, knew.
Just nobody in the Bush administration.
The outrage and the outcry has been loud and long. As soon as the articles appeared in the Washington Post this past weekend and on through this week, Congressional and White House offices have been flooded with phone calls, e-mails, and press queries.
Television network news crews showed up at the same places mentioned in the articles and put out some B-roll that proves every word to be true.
By first thing Monday morning, the Pentagon was racing to instigate big-time damage control. By the time the news crews had arrived, Army work-crews were already ripping up foul carpeting and removing black mold. Soldiers who'd called those sad quarters "home" for months on end had already been moved--presumably--to better rooms.
Social workers have suddenly been put in place to help with the emotional and mental stresses of the patients
The trouble is, they are expecting a "troop surge" of more and more waves of war-wounded as a result of Bush's big surge plan in Baghdad, and the problems will only be compounded then.
The secretaries of the Army and Navy are launching their own investigations to go along with a Pentagon probe instigated by the news articles, and Congress is falling all over itself to find answers and fix the problems.
Several senators, including presidential candidate Barack Obama (D-Ill) and former presidential candidate John Kerry (D-Mass), announced they are co-sponsoring legislation to simplify the paperwork process for recovering soldiers and increase case managers and psychological counselors. The bill would also require the Army to report more regularly to Congress and the inspector general about the living conditions of injured soldiers.
--"Swift Action Promised at Walter Reed: Investigations Urged as Army Moves to Make Repairs, Improve Staffing," Dana Priest and Anne Hull, Washington Post, February 21, 2007
Tucked away in this president's defense budget are billions that have been allocated for high-tech defense systems, unneeded jet airplanes, and other boondoggles designed to keep K Street and its defense industry lobbyists fat and happy.
Meanwhile, the men and women who are actually doing the FIGHTING in this war, have been horribly mistreated, neglected, and even abused because, basically, the military does not have the money it needs to take care of them.
This is criminal.
Jeff Miller (Fla), the ranking Republican on the House Veteran's Affairs subcommittee on health, said, "The neglect being experienced by some wounded service members is outrageous. The Defense Dept. is never shy about asking for supplemental funds for operations and equipment; I cannot imagine why housing for recuperating wounded would not be a similar high priority."
--ibid
Taped to my computer stack is a post card that I bought at a little independent bookstore in Brooklyn, NY.
It says:
TO READ IS TO EMPOWER
TO EMPOWER IS TO WRITE
TO WRITE IS TO INFLUENCE
TO INFLUENCE IS TO CHANGE
TO CHANGE IS TO LIVE.
What reporters Dana Priest and Anne Hull, and their newspaper, the Washington Post, did is to change the lives of those who have given the most to this country.
This is what good journalism is. It is what good journalism does.
It's just a damn shame that it took a newspaper article to do what this administration should have been doing all along, considering how many elections they won by surrounding themselves with waving flags and cheering troops.
… Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va), who headed the House Government Reform Committee, which investigates problems at Walter Reed and other Army facilities, said, "…There's vast appreciation for soldiers, but there's a lack of focus on what happens to them," when they return. "It's awful."
…One case manager was so disgusted, she brought roach bombs for the rooms. Mouse traps are handed out. It doesn't help that soldiers there subsist on carry-out food because the hospital cafeteria is such a hike on cold nights. They make do with microwaves and hot plates…
…"I hate it," said Spec. George Romero, 25…"There are cockroaches. The elevator doesn't work. The garage door doesn't work. Sometimes there's no heat, no water…I talked to doctors and medical staff. They just said you kind of get used to the outside world…My platoon sergeant said, 'Suck it up.'"
--"Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration at Army's Top Medical Facility," Dana Priest and Anne Hull, Washington Post, February 18, 2007
The conflict in Iraq has hatched a virtual town of desperation and dysfunction, clinging to the pilings of Walter Reed. The wounded are socked away for months and years in random buildings and barracks in and around this military post…
Bomb blasts are the most common cause of injury in Iraq, and nearly 60 percent of the blast victims also suffer from traumatic brain injury, according to Walter Reed's studies, which explains why some at Mologne House wander the hallways trying to remember their room numbers.
Some soldiers and Marines have been here for 18 months or longer. Doctor's appointments and evaluations are routinely dragged out and difficult to get…
--"Hotel Aftermath: Inside Mologne House, the Survivors of War Wrestle with Military Bureaucracy and Personal Demons," Anne Hull and Dana Priest, Washington Post, February 19, 2007
For the past three years, Michael J. Wagner directed the Army's largest effort to help the most vulnerable soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. His office in Room 3E01 of the world-renowned hospital was supposed to match big-hearted donors with thousands of wounded soldiers who could not afford to feed their children, pay mortgages, buy plane tickets or put up visiting families in nearby hotels.
But while he was being paid to provide this vital service to patients, outpatients and their relations, Wagner was also seeking funders and soliciting donations for his own new charity, based in Texas, according to documents and interviews with current and former staff members. Some families also said Wagner treated them callously and made it hard for them to receive assistance.
--"Hospital Investigates Former Aid Chief: Walter Reed Official Had Own Charity," Dana Priest and Anne Hull, Washington Post, February 20, 2007
If you listen to the PR operation at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the U.S. military's gleaming flagship hospital offers veterans the best treatment available. What doesn't get mentioned is the bureaucratic contempt and physical squalor that too often await badly injured outpatient soldiers on the Walter Reed campus, the subject of a four-month Post investigation detailed in articles published Sunday and Monday.
Reporters Dana Priest and Anne Hull and researcher Julie Tate spent hundreds of hours inspecting conditions and interviewing injured troops and their loved ones at Walter Reed outpatient facilities. Their findings: Veteran's rooms were rank; bureaucratic hassles and paper-pushing make the process of repairing buildings, redressing patient grievances and providing veterans with basic goods depressingly distressing, many veterans leave Walter Reed without the compensation they clearly deserve for their sacrifices.
The walls of one soldier's room were covered with black mold, and the ceiling of his shower had a large hole. Soldiers who lost their uniforms while undergoing emergency treatment on the battlefield have had to present their purple hearts to get replacement clothes. Amputees and patients on taxing drug regimens are required to report for formation early in the morning, even if it means trudging over accumulated ice and snow. ..
Most infuriating are reports of official efforts to deny disability benefits to discharged fighters…lowball settlements may leave soldiers and their families impoverished for life.
--"Rotten Homecoming: This is No Way to Treat a Veteran," editorial, Washington Post, February 21, 2007
First of all, just let me say: GOD BLESS REPORTERS DANA PRIEST, ANNE HULL, AND RESEARCHER JULIE TATE--and the WASHINGTON POST.
I hope they receive the Pulitzer Prize for this groundbreaking--and heartbreaking--story about the TRUE fate that awaits those brave men and women who leave parts of their bodies and brains--as well as blood, sweat, and tears--behind in the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Not so photo-oppy, is it? But then, reality and truth--as opposed to politics and propaganda--seldom are.
The Washington Post and its fine reporters have done exactly what a free press in a functioning democracy SHOULD do--tear back the pretty-colored government band-aids to reveal the gaping wounds of truth hidden beneath.
When I first started to read this series on conditions for so many of our war-wounded right there within television-camera distance from the White House, it made me, literally, sick to my stomach. I didn't even show the articles to my combat-vet husband because I knew it would upset him too much, nor will I show them to my combat-vet, active-duty Marine son.
There is so much to take in. Printed up, the first two articles, alone, ran nine pages apiece.
Page after page of documented cases--quoted by name and rank--of horrifying neglect, dreary, daily misery, families under almost unimaginable stress, and war-wounded soldiers kicked to the curb with virtually no benefits or protections.
In the Post editorial, the case of Cpl. Dell McLoud was recounted:
The Army tried to deny disability compensation to Cpl. Dell McLoud, who suffered a head injury that left him aimless and unable even to count change at the cafeteria. Army officials' argument: Because he had done poorly in high school, his current mental state might not have been caused by the steel door that smashed his skull in Iraq.
The only way these reporters were able to get this true story was by simply not telling the Army that they were doing it. They knew that if they went through official channels, they'd be sent to the show-case wards at Walter Reed where amputees are first taken--sparkling, state of the art facilities that are nothing less than what our men and women deserve.
But here, as Paul Harvey would say, is the REST OF THE STORY.
After a few weeks, when they are wheelchair-bound but not yet fitted for prosthetics, when their claims are being processed, they are assigned to housing there on the base, in buildings scattered far and wide over the campus.
And there, basically, they are left to rot.
The thing is, the U.S. military was not and has not been, prepared for the FLOOD of wounded from this war. Fully ninety percent of war-injuries are survived, and patients missing as much as three limbs, or half their brains, are sent to U.S. military facilities to recuperate.
Not since the Vietnam war has the system been so overwhelmed, only back then, they had TEN TIMES the staff available to handle it.
Now, it's nothing but a bottle-necked nightmare. Mologne House, which was mentioned in the second article of the series, was built only a few short years ago, primarily as a nice hotel that was to be used to house family members of wounded soldiers and Marines, as well as the disabled vets who were retired.
But Iraq and Afghanistan sent so many waves and waves of grievously wounded troops that soon the hotel was completely given over to house them. At least those who live there don't have to deal with cockroaches and black mold.
However, even though all of them had suffered terrible wounds--some traumatic brain injuries--and all were suffering varying degrees of post traumatic stress, the Army refused to allow psychologists or even social workers on the premises.
Consequently, there have been suicides and cases of drug overdoses and even alcohol poisoning as despairing and desperate war-wounded take their own lives.
At any of dozens of other buildings on the premises, the squalor is horrifying enough, but these guys are still in the Army. They are expected to "fall out" at 5:30 a.m. for formation. They have to make their way over ice-covered sidewalks on crutches and in wheelchairs, zonked out on medication, to report for duty.
When their uniforms are slashed off of them by medics in the battlefield, they then have nothing to wear in the hospital. They manage to make do with sweats and tee shirts, but in at least one case, an amputee was refused permission to attend the memorial service of a good friend who was killed in Iraq because he did not have a uniform to wear to the event.
Others have to prove that they are even IN the Army, especially if their paperwork gets lost, which it frequently does. Some have to bring photographs of their time in combat, or show their medals, in order to have access to basic facilities.
And that does not even approach the vast numbers who are being refused lifetime access to medical care. In an obvious attempt the cut spending, time and time again, the grievously wounded are kicked to the curb.
According to the Army Times, one 20-year old soldier--who has a titanium plate in his skull to replace missing pieces from a bomb blast that also ruptured his spleen, tore out his colon, and tore away the ligaments from his knee--was turned down for medical benefits post-discharge.
One case of thousands.
GEORGE W. BUSH SAYS HE DID NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS UNTIL THE ARTICLES APPEARED IN THE PAPER, BUT IN HIS PAST THREE BUDGETS--ALL RUBBER-STAMPED BY A REPUBLICAN CONGRESS--THE V.A. BUDGET HAS BEEN SLASHED BY TEN PERCENT--THAT'S A 30-PERCENT CUT IN FUNDS TO THE V.A.--JUST WHEN THE WAR-WOUNDED ARE SWELLING ITS RANKS BY THE THOUSANDS.
When the reporters interviewed Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman, commander at Walter Reed, he said that one of the reasons the claims were being dragged out as long as they were, was so that the Army could hold onto soldiers as long as possible, "because this is the first time this country has fought a war for so long with an all-volunteer force since the Revolution."
Bush and the Pentagon are scrambling to cover their asses on this one, and although they all say they HAD NO IDEA UNTIL IT APPEARED IN THE PAPER, the truth is that, as of March, 2006, a Government Accountability Office report documented many of these same outrages, according to the Army Times.
So somebody, somewhere, knew.
Just nobody in the Bush administration.
The outrage and the outcry has been loud and long. As soon as the articles appeared in the Washington Post this past weekend and on through this week, Congressional and White House offices have been flooded with phone calls, e-mails, and press queries.
Television network news crews showed up at the same places mentioned in the articles and put out some B-roll that proves every word to be true.
By first thing Monday morning, the Pentagon was racing to instigate big-time damage control. By the time the news crews had arrived, Army work-crews were already ripping up foul carpeting and removing black mold. Soldiers who'd called those sad quarters "home" for months on end had already been moved--presumably--to better rooms.
Social workers have suddenly been put in place to help with the emotional and mental stresses of the patients
The trouble is, they are expecting a "troop surge" of more and more waves of war-wounded as a result of Bush's big surge plan in Baghdad, and the problems will only be compounded then.
The secretaries of the Army and Navy are launching their own investigations to go along with a Pentagon probe instigated by the news articles, and Congress is falling all over itself to find answers and fix the problems.
Several senators, including presidential candidate Barack Obama (D-Ill) and former presidential candidate John Kerry (D-Mass), announced they are co-sponsoring legislation to simplify the paperwork process for recovering soldiers and increase case managers and psychological counselors. The bill would also require the Army to report more regularly to Congress and the inspector general about the living conditions of injured soldiers.
--"Swift Action Promised at Walter Reed: Investigations Urged as Army Moves to Make Repairs, Improve Staffing," Dana Priest and Anne Hull, Washington Post, February 21, 2007
Tucked away in this president's defense budget are billions that have been allocated for high-tech defense systems, unneeded jet airplanes, and other boondoggles designed to keep K Street and its defense industry lobbyists fat and happy.
Meanwhile, the men and women who are actually doing the FIGHTING in this war, have been horribly mistreated, neglected, and even abused because, basically, the military does not have the money it needs to take care of them.
This is criminal.
Jeff Miller (Fla), the ranking Republican on the House Veteran's Affairs subcommittee on health, said, "The neglect being experienced by some wounded service members is outrageous. The Defense Dept. is never shy about asking for supplemental funds for operations and equipment; I cannot imagine why housing for recuperating wounded would not be a similar high priority."
--ibid
Taped to my computer stack is a post card that I bought at a little independent bookstore in Brooklyn, NY.
It says:
TO READ IS TO EMPOWER
TO EMPOWER IS TO WRITE
TO WRITE IS TO INFLUENCE
TO INFLUENCE IS TO CHANGE
TO CHANGE IS TO LIVE.
What reporters Dana Priest and Anne Hull, and their newspaper, the Washington Post, did is to change the lives of those who have given the most to this country.
This is what good journalism is. It is what good journalism does.
It's just a damn shame that it took a newspaper article to do what this administration should have been doing all along, considering how many elections they won by surrounding themselves with waving flags and cheering troops.
posted by Deanie Mills at 4:02 PM
3 Comments:
Excellent Post.
For contrast, I would like to provide a description of something our government is doing right these days with regard to Vets.
I am currently a resident in a Veteran's Home after having undergone treatment through the VA for PTSD and Depression, long overdue some 40 years after the Tet Offensive that cap stoned my military 2nd tour in Vietnam with a lifetime of illness.
My blog has attracted the stories of many veterans such as myself and other sufferers from PTSD who were victimized by elements of society other than the VA system of medical and mental treatment. I, for one, became trapped in the Military Industrial Complex for 36 years working on weapons systems that are saving lives today but with such high security clearances that I dared not get treated for fear of losing my career:
http://rosecoveredglasses.blogspot.com/2006/11/odyssey-of-armaments.html
When my disorders became life threatening, the Commissioner of Veteran's Affairs for the State of Minnesota, Clark Dyrud, stepped in and saw to it that I was entered into the VA System for treatment in Minneapolis. It saved my life and I am now in complete recovery and functioning as a volunteer for SCORE, as well as authoring books and blogging the world.
When I was in the VA system I was amazed at how well it functioned and how state of the art it is for its massive mission. Below is a feature article from Time Magazine which does a good job of explaining why it is a class act:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1376238,00.html
I had state of the art medical and mental care, met some of the most dedicated professionals I have ever seen and was cared for by a handful of very special nurses among the 60,000 + nursing population that make up that mammoth system. While I was resident at the VA Hospital in Minneapolis I observed many returnees from Iraq getting excellent care.
I do not say the VA system is perfect but it is certainly being run better on a $39B budget than the Pentagon is running on $494B.
Rosecovered, Thank you for adding this perspective. I must say that many of my family members have taken advantage of the VA and have had excellent care. And I know people who work in the VA system who are dedicated professionals--you are very right about that.
I think in this case, the situation at the outpatient facilities in Walter Reed draw attention to the stresses put on the system by four years of war, by the modern survival of catastrophic injuries, requiring lifelong care, and the extended use of Natn'l. Guard troops in a warzone. Their medical benefits are different from active-duty and the snafus are immense.
I think there is plenty of money in the defense budget to take care of so many of these problems, but to do so, we've got to cut some of the boondoggle waste on high-tech programs that are not needed, and move that money over where it is.
Semper fi,
Deanie
I work in the VA system and I don't believe that all VA hospitals are equal, nor their programs. The Viet Nam War and the fact that many vets became homeless, substance abusers or worse, trying to cope with civilian life after a not so warm welcome, was the advent of programs designed to treat PTSD. I may be wrong, but it was also to the credit of many vets and their families who pushed for these programs to be put into place and develope into what they are today and many of those programs are wonderful. But this article sheds light on a problem that is much bigger than building 18. I know from personal experience how bottlenecked the system is. It is extremely difficult to create change in the VA hospital and it is difficult to fire incompetent employees, they just get reassigned. It is commonplace for individuals to come for appointments and even surgeries, only to be cancelled and rescheduled for weeks, sometimes months down the road. I saw a joint replacement patient have his total knee replacement cancelled three times in one week. Their is a high degree of inefficiency and lack of accountability in some institutions, not all. You know darn well that Walter Reed better be top notch because it is too visible. To the VA's credit they are the only hospital to have a computerized system for patient record keeping, which doesn't explain how they allow these soldiers to drop out of the system once they become outpatients. But I am NOT at all surprised. I know of Marine recruiters who lost paper work not once but twice, on my sons best friend when he signed up. After it happened a second time he said, "thanks but no thanks". It is very difficult to change a culture and a climate, especially in a government run institution and it is obvious that strategic planning for our wounded wasn't instituted when our government started this war. It is only going to get worse as this surge continues. If these soldiers were treated like this in the private sector, there would be many malpractice lawers lining up at the court house doors and hell to pay. A lot of people are under the misconception that you can't sue the government, well that's just not true. I'm not advocating suing the government, I hate law suits, it's one of the nasty reasons why our health care costs are so high and why some of our finest Dr's have left the profession and why so many foreign residents are in our programs today. But if my son were one of those kids in building 18, I'd have sought legal council long before now. We need to pressure our government into providing for our wounded that which they promised them and what they deserve for putting their life on the line for the freedoms we enjoy. In a country that has the finest health care available in the world, how can we not. Every time I hear about the money wasted on ridiculous government contracts and unaccounted funds and incredible waist, it makes me sick. We have soldiers maimed and sick and struggling to get back on their feet with dignity and here they are living in mouse feces and cockroach infested moldy tenements. That is a disgrace! We should all be writing our congree and shouting LOUD and CLEAR that this is completely criminal and will not be tolerated. Kathy, a nurse and a mad as hell Marine MOM.
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