The f'ing Washington Post, screwing up yet again

[boutons_]

Pentagon Faults Leadership for Walter Reed

Officials Say They Learned of Serious Problems From Post Exposé

By William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 21, 2007; 2:40 PM


Top Pentagon officials today blamed a breakdown in leadership for problems with outpatient care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and vowed to take quick corrective action.

In a Pentagon briefing, however, the officials said they did not know about the most serious problems until The Washington Post reported on them in a two-part exposé on Sunday and Monday. An "independent review group" is being formed to look into the problems and report back as soon as possible, the officials said.

Gen. Richard A. Cody, vice chief of staff of the Army, and William Winkenwerder Jr., assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, declined to specify precisely where the leadership breakdown occurred or to identify anyone who was at fault. Instead, they and the commander of Walter Reed, Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman, said they took overall responsibility for the situation.

"Clearly, we've had a breakdown in leadership, and bureaucratic, medical and contractual processes bogged down a speedy solution to these problems," Cody told reporters. "I can assure you that the appropriate vigor and leadership is being applied to this issue, and we will correct any problems immediately."

Cody vowed to "personally oversee the plan to upgrade Building 18," a decrepit former hotel that houses about 80 wounded soldiers just outside the Walter Reed grounds. The general also said the name of the 54-room facility would soon be changed.

"Referring to a place where our soldiers stay as Building 18 is not appropriate," he said. "We own that building, and we're going to take charge of it."

The Post found recovering soldiers living in squalid conditions in Building 18, with some of the quarters plagued by mold, rot and vermin. The series also documented a larger issue of bureaucratic indifference that soldiers and family members said had demoralized them and impeded recovery.

Cody said he and Army Secretary Francis Harvey visited Building 18 yesterday, "and we were absolutely disappointed in the status of the rooms and found the delays and lack of attention to detail to the building's repairs inexcusable."

....

==============

dickhead would much prefer that the Army bomb the NYT and WP.

[ChumpDumper]

I'm sure Insight Magazine was all ready with an expose of their own, they just didn't want to embolden the enemy.

[PixelPusher]

I'm sure Insight Magazine was all ready with an expose of their own, they just didn't want to embolden the enemy.
They were too busy fabricating a story of how Lincoln would personally saw off the legs of wounded Union troops, then scold the amputees for crying out in pain, lest the sounds carry over to the Confederate camps and give aid and comfort to the enemy.

[101A]

Just so we're all clear on what a government run hospital is like.

[boutons_]

"government run hospital is like."

Just so we're all clear, not fogging up and lying like 101A and his "all govt is inherently bad" agenda

- this was a glaring exception at otherwise excellent WR, while still glaringly inexcusable. An example of how even the Army doesn't "support our troops" until kicked in the butt.

- the VA, overhauled starting in the Clinton terms, is run more efficiently than ANY for-profit HMO operation, with life-long relationships with the VA clients. It is the perfect example of what good govt can do. The Repugs NEVER mention the current VA. It doesn't fit their destroy-govt agenda.

- As is the SocSec , which has admin overheads of about 2%. dubya wanted dump people and their SocSec funds into the private hands, where financial for-profit operations take out 7%. That was nothing but a plan for private companies to rip-off $Bs from SocSec funds while delivering less funds to SocSec contributors. Even the dumbfuck sheeple/rabble so through that Repug scam and rejected it en masse.

[101A]

- the VA, overhauled starting in the Clinton terms, is run more efficiently than ANY for-profit HMO operation,

Link please.


- As is the SocSec , which has admin overheads of about 2%. dubya wanted dump people and their SocSec funds into the private hands, where financial for-profit operations take out 7%. That was nothing but a plan for private companies to rip-off $Bs from SocSec funds while delivering less funds to SocSec contributors. Even the dumbfuck sheeple/rabble so through that Repug scam and rejected it en masse.


Yeah, I'm getting MUCH better return on my 15% SS $$$ than my 10% 401K.

Oh, no, that's right....my 401K is going to pay me 10 TIMES what Social Security will when I retire; despite the fact that my broker is making some coin off of me!

Just like you, B; just so long as nobody gets to make any money, you don't care about what is ACTUALLY being returned in value from the government.

[boutons_]

If 401Ks are so fantastic, why did the Repugs' proposal to privatize SocSec fail so miserably?

If 401Ks are so fantastic, why doesn't everybody have one?

[DarkReign]

If 401Ks are so fantastic, why did the Repugs' proposal to privatize SocSec fail so miserably?

If 401Ks are so fantastic, why doesn't everybody have one?

I have a 401k...Im killing with it. 14.7% on average

[101A]

If 401Ks are so fantastic, why did the Repugs' proposal to privatize SocSec fail so miserably?

You mean privatize a percentage of a percentage of Social Security?

Scare tactics


If 401Ks are so fantastic, why doesn't everybody have one?

If 21% interest is a ridiculous amount to pay, why do so many people carry, and use, revolving credit?

I can't explain some things. Many people, however, do have retirement funds, and thank god they do. Otherwise Social Security would be in even more trouble..

I can also ask questions!

If Social Security is so great, why does the government make it all but impossible to opt out of it?

[DarkReign]

If Social Security is so great, why does the government make it all but impossible to opt out of it?

Bingo. Its not compensation, its just another tax. As much as I didnt/dont agree with privatization, something needs to be done.

Because if SS is just another tax (which it is for me, and probably all of us on this forum except Ray), then just call it a tax and be done with it.

Right now, I am being lied to on my paycheck. I get a monthly statement that shows me how much I can expect from SS when I retire, bla bla bla. I just stopped opening it full-well knowing I will never see one red cent of that money.

I dont want a refund, I just dont want to be lied to. Will you baby-boomers die already?

[PixelPusher]

Just so we're all clear on what a government run hospital is like.
Just so were clear on what happens when an administration that has contempt for government services (everything lumped together in the derogatory term "entitlement") is in charge of those services (see also: FEMA)

[101A]

Just so were clear on what happens when an administration that has contempt for government services (everything lumped together in the derogatory term "entitlement") is in charge of those services (see also: FEMA)


So, the government was a paragon of efficiency and goodness untill 2001? Also, if those programs are so fragile and subject to the whims of whoever is in "power" from day to day; seeing as though that is designed to change, potentially, every 4 years, what is the point of creating them in the first place?

[101A]

Just so were clear on what happens when an administration that has contempt for government services (everything lumped together in the derogatory term "entitlement") is in charge of those services (see also: FEMA)


Also, I don't believe I have heard ANYBODY, sans you, compare veteran's hospital treatment and rehabilitation with government "entitlement" programs. I guess in your biased world view of evil conservatives, it is so. It is not.

I think it is shameful what was allowed to occur at WR - and am glad the Post has pointed it out, whether or not it gives a "black eye" to the administration. If it does, they deserve it. Private hospitals that behave and treat patients that way are soon sued out of existence.

[PixelPusher]

So, the government was a paragon of efficiency and goodness untill 2001? Also, if those programs are so fragile and subject to the whims of whoever is in "power" from day to day; seeing as though that is designed to change, potentially, every 4 years, what is the point of creating them in the first place?
After 6 years? After all the focus this administration has given the military? I'll grant that there is layers of buearocracy between the Administration and government programs, but that doesn't fly in this instance.

Governments are typically inefficient. That's not a good enough reason to do away with it and let the free market fairies solve all of our problems. I'll listen to any Republican that endeavors to make government more efficient, but I won't consider any Republican that endeavors to gut it completely. Your free market fantasy is every bit as naive and destructive as the communist ideal.

[101A]

After 6 years? After all the focus this administration has given the military? I'll grant that there is layers of buearocracy between the Administration and government programs, but that doesn't fly in this instance.

Governments are typically inefficient. That's not a good enough reason to do away with it and let the free market fairies solve all of our problems. I'll listen to any Republican that endeavors to make government more efficient, but I won't consider any Republican that endeavors to gut it completely. Your free market fantasy is every bit as naive and destructive as the communist ideal.

Government IS a necessary evil, and there are some, even many, things that it necessarily MUST deal with, and even be the principal, or even sole payor for. However, its role must be as limited as possible; it is no panacea, and most of what it touches will be poorly managed. You would have to dissolve MANY government programs before you could ever begin to contend our system to be "gutted".

You've apparently confused me with someone else.

[Yonivore]

There's a wonderfully concise document that spells out the federal government's limited role, if only they'd stick to it.

It's called the U. S. Constitution.

[PixelPusher]

There's a wonderfully concise document that spells out the federal government's limited role, if only they'd stick to it.

It's called the U. S. Constitution.
Using taxpayer dollars to care for wounded soldiers is inherently un-constitutional. Got it.
:rolleyes

[Yonivore]

Using taxpayer dollars to care for wounded soldiers is inherently un-constitutional. Got it.
:rolleyes
I didn't say that.

I will say that using taxpayers' dollars to care for illegal aliens is inherently unconstitutional. Let's redirect those funds.

[BIG IRISH]

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/special_packages/galloway/16758255.htm

Disgusting treatment for those to whom we owe so much


By Joseph L. Galloway
McClatchy Newspapers

There's a great deal more to supporting our troops than sticking a $2 yellow ribbon magnet made in China on your SUV. There's a great deal more to it than making "Support Our Troops" a phrase that every politician feels obliged to utter in every speech, no matter how banal the topic or craven the purpose.


This week, we were treated to a new expose of just how fraudulent and shallow and meaningless "Support Our Troops" is on the lips of those in charge of spending the half a trillion dollars of taxpayers' money that the Pentagon eats every year.


The Washington Post published an expose, complete with photographs, revealing that for every inpatient who's getting the best medical treatment that money can buy at the main hospital at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, there are 17 outpatients warehoused in quarters unfit for human habitation.


Some of the military outpatients are stuck on the Walter Reed campus, a couple of miles from the White House and the Capitol, for as long as 12 months. They've been living in rat and roach-infested rooms, some of which are coated in black mold.


There was outrage and disgust and raw anger at this callous, cruel treatment of those who have the greatest claim not only on our sympathies but also on the public purse. Who among the smiling politicians who regularly troop over to the main hospital at Walter Reed for photo-op visits with those who've come home grievously wounded from the wars the politicians started have bothered to go the extra quarter-mile to see the unseen majority with their rats and roaches?


Not one, it would seem, since none among them have admitted to knowing that there was a problem, much less doing something about it before the reporters blew the whistle.


Within 24 hours, construction crews were working overtime, slapping paint over the moldy drywall, patching the sagging ceilings and putting out traps and poison for the critters that infest the place.


Within 48 hours, the Department of Defense announced that it was appointing an independent commission to investigate. Doubtless the commission will provide a detailed report finding that no one was guilty - certainly none of the politicians of the ruling party whose hands were on the levers of power for five long years of war. They will find that it all came about because the Army medical establishment was overwhelmed by the caseload flowing out of Iraq and Afghanistan.


Meanwhile, brave soldiers who were wheelchair-bound with missing legs or paralysis, have been left to make their own way a quarter-mile to appointments with the shrinks and a half-mile to pick up the drugs that dim their minds and eyes and pain, and make the rats and roaches recede into a fuzzy distance.


All this came on the heels of my McClatchy Newspapers colleague Chris Adams' Feb. 9 report that even by its own measures, the Veterans Administration isn't prepared to give returning veterans the care they need to help them overcome destructive, and sometimes fatal, mental health ailments.


Nearly 100 VA clinics provided virtually no mental health care in 2005, Adams found, and the average veteran with psychiatric troubles gets about a third fewer visits with specialists today than he would have received a decade ago.


The same politicians, from a macho president to the bureaucrats to the people who chair the congressional committees that are supposed to oversee such matters, have utterly failed to protect our wounded warriors. They've talked the talk but few, if any, have ever walked the walk.


No. This happened while all of them were busy as bees, taking billions out of the VA budget and planning to shut down Walter Reed by 2011 in the name of cost-efficiency.


Among those politicians are the people who sent too few troops to Afghanistan or Iraq, who failed to provide enough body armor and weapons and armored vehicles and who, to protect their own political hides, refused to admit that the mission was not accomplished and change course.


But it's they who are charged with the highest duty of all, in the words of President Abraham Lincoln in his Second Inaugural in 1865: "to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan."


How can they look at themselves in the mirror every morning? How dare they ever utter the words: Support Our Troops? How dare they pretend to give a damn about those they order to war?


They've hidden the flag-draped coffins of the fallen from the public and the press. They've averted their eyes from the suffering that their orders have visited upon an Army that they've ground down by misuse and over-use and just plain incompetence


This shabby, sorry episode of political and institutional cruelty to those who deserve the best their nation can provide is the last straw. How can they spin this one to blame the generals or the media or the Democrats? How can you do that, Karl?


If the American people are not sickened and disgusted by this then, by God, we don't deserve to be defended from the wolves of this world. :pctoss

[boutons_]

Walter Reed Patients Told to Keep Quiet

By Kelly Kennedy
Army Times

Tuesday 27 February 2007

Soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center's Medical Hold Unit say they have been told they will wake up at 6 a.m. every morning and have their rooms ready for inspection at 7 a.m., and that they must not speak to the media.

"Some soldiers believe this is a form of punishment for the trouble soldiers caused by talking to the media," one Medical Hold Unit soldier said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Soldiers say their sergeant major gathered troops at 6 p.m. Monday to tell them they must follow their chain of command when asking for help with their medical evaluation paperwork, or when they spot mold, mice or other problems in their quarters.

They were also told they would be moving out of Building 18 to Building 14 within the next couple of weeks. Building 14 is a barracks that houses the administrative offices for the Medical Hold Unit and was renovated in 2006. It's also located on the Walter Reed Campus, where reporters must be escorted by public affairs personnel. Building 18 is located just off campus and is easy to access.

The soldiers said they were also told their first sergeant has been relieved of duty, and that all of their platoon sergeants have been moved to other positions at Walter Reed. And 120 permanent-duty soldiers are expected to arrive by mid-March to take control of the Medical Hold Unit, the soldiers said.

As of Tuesday afternoon, Army public affairs did not respond to a request sent Sunday evening to verify the personnel changes.

The Pentagon also clamped down on media coverage of any and all Defense Department medical facilities, to include suspending planned projects by CNN and the Discovery Channel, saying in an e-mail to spokespeople: "It will be in most cases not appropriate to engage the media while this review takes place," referring to an investigation of the problems at Walter Reed.

=====================

Protect the organization and its leaders, and fuck the individuals, It's The American Way.

[BIG IRISH]

Walter Reed Patients Told to Keep Quiet

....
Protect the organization and its leaders, and fuck the individuals, It's The American Way.

:clap ty BOUTONS

TY Boutons and add this SALT to the WOUND

About 31,000 U.S. soldiers have been evacuated for medical reasons, 4,000 of them with battle injuries, from the wars in Iraq and Afganistan

Top officials knew of neglect at Walter Reed
Complaints about medical center were voiced for years
Buildings at Walter Reed Army Medical Center

Updated: 9:47 p.m. CT Feb 28, 2007
Top officials at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, including the Army's surgeon general, have heard complaints about outpatient neglect from family members, veterans groups and members of Congress for more than three years.

A procession of Pentagon and Walter Reed officials expressed surprise last week about the living conditions and bureaucratic nightmares faced by wounded soldiers staying at the D.C. medical facility. But as far back as 2003, the commander of Walter Reed, Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, who is now the Army's top medical officer, was told that soldiers who were wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan were languishing and lost on the grounds, according to interviews.



Steve Robinson, director of veterans affairs at Veterans for America, said he ran into Kiley in the foyer of the command headquarters at Walter Reed shortly after the Iraq war began and told him that "there are people in the barracks who are drinking themselves to death and people who are sharing drugs and people not getting the care they need."

"I met guys who weren't going to appointments because the hospital didn't even know they were there," Robinson said. Kiley told him to speak to a sergeant major, a top enlisted officer.

A recent Washington Post series detailed conditions at Walter Reed, including those at Building 18, a dingy former hotel on Georgia Avenue where the wounded were housed among mice, mold, rot and cockroaches.

Kiley lives across the street from Building 18. From his quarters, he can see the scrappy building and busy traffic the soldiers must cross to get to the 113-acre post.
At a news conference last week, Kiley, who declined several requests for interviews for this article, said that the problems of Building 18 "weren't serious and there weren't a lot of them." He also said they were not "emblematic of a process of Walter Reed that has abandoned soldiers and their families."

A stream of complaints
But according to interviews, Kiley, his successive commanders at Walter Reed and various top noncommissioned officers in charge of soldiers' lives have heard a stream of complaints about outpatient treatment over the past several years. The complaints have surfaced at town hall meetings for staff and soldiers, at commanders' "sensing sessions" in which soldiers or officers are encouraged to speak freely, and in several inspector general's reports detailing building conditions, safety issues and other matters.

Retired Maj. Gen. Kenneth L. Farmer Jr., who commanded Walter Reed for two years until last August, said that he was aware of outpatient problems and that there were "ongoing reviews and discussions" about how to fix them when he left. He said he shared many of those issues with Kiley, his immediate commander. Last summer when he turned over command to Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman, Farmer said, "there were a variety of things we identified as opportunities for continued improvement."

In 2004, Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.) and his wife stopped visiting the wounded at Walter Reed out of frustration. Young said he voiced concerns to commanders over troubling incidents he witnessed but was rebuffed or ignored. "When Bev or I would bring problems to the attention of authorities of Walter Reed, we were made to feel very uncomfortable," said Young, who began visiting the wounded recuperating at other facilities.

Beverly Young said she complained to Kiley several times. She once visited a soldier who was lying in urine on his mattress pad in the hospital. When a nurse ignored her, Young said, "I went flying down to Kevin Kiley's office again, and got nowhere. :pctoss He has skirted this stuff for five years and blamed everyone else."

Young said that even after Kiley left Walter Reed to become the Army's surgeon general, "if anything could have been done to correct problems, he could have done it."

Soldiers and family members say their complaints have been ignored by commanders at many levels.

More than a year ago, Chief Warrant Officer Jayson Kendrick, an outpatient, attended a sensing session, the Army's version of a town hall meeting where concerns are raised in front of the chain of command. Kendrick spoke about the deterioration and crowded conditions of the outpatient administrative building, which had secondhand computers and office furniture shoved into cubicles, creating chaos for family members. An inspector general attending the meeting "chuckled and said, 'What do you want, pool tables and Ping-Pong tables in there?' " Kendrick recalled.

Army officials have been at other meetings in which outpatient problems were detailed.

On Feb. 17, 2005, Kiley sat in a congressional hearing room as Sgt. 1st Class John Allen, injured in Afghanistan in 2002, described what he called a "dysfunctional system" at Walter Reed in which "soldiers go months without pay, nowhere to live, their medical appointments canceled." Allen added: "The result is a massive stress and mental pain causing further harm. It would be very easy to correct the situation if the command element climate supported it. The command staff at Walter Reed needs to show their care."

In 2006, Joe Wilson, a clinical social worker in the department of psychiatry, briefed several colonels at Walter Reed about problems and steps that could be taken to improve living conditions at Building 18. Last March, he also shared the findings of a survey his department had conducted.

‘People knew about it’
It found that 75 percent of outpatients said their experience at Walter Reed had been "stressful" and that there was a "significant population of unsatisfied, frustrated, disenfranchised patients." Military commanders played down the findings.

"These people knew about it," Wilson said. "The bottom line is, people knew about it but the culture of the Army didn't allow it to be addressed."

Last October, Joyce Rumsfeld, the wife of then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, was taken to Walter Reed by a friend concerned about outpatient treatment. She attended a weekly meeting, called Girls Time Out, at which wives, girlfriends and mothers of soldiers exchange stories and offer support.

According to three people who attended the gathering, Rumsfeld listened quietly. Some of the women did not know who she was. At the end of the meeting, Rumsfeld asked one of the staff members whether she thought that the soldiers her husband was meeting on his visits had been handpicked to paint a rosy picture of their time there. The answer was yes
:rolleyes , like dumbsfield didn't know.

When Walter Reed officials found out that Rumsfeld had visited, they told the friend who brought her -- a woman who had volunteered there many times -- that she was no longer welcome on the grounds.

No contact with reporters
Last week, the Army relieved of duty several low-ranking soldiers who managed outpatients. This week, in a move that some soldiers viewed as reprisal for speaking to the media, the wounded troops were told that early-morning room inspections would be held and that further contact with reporters is prohibited.

Yesterday, Walter Reed received an unscheduled inspection by a hospital accreditation agency. Members of the Joint Commission, formerly the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, began a two-day visit "for cause" to examine discharge practices that have allowed soldiers to go missing or unaccounted for after they are released from the hospital


:bang :pctoss :cry :cry :cry

If you check it, they have spent more $ on Golf Courses at all Military Facilities, than they have for medical Care for those they can't return to battle.SOS, another thing that can be compared to NAM.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17372118/

[AFE7FATMAN]

Support our troops

Try something other than
little yellow ribbons
or

Thank you for your service

Try
Support the gathering of EAgles
on March 17, 2007


Why are we going to washington on March 17.

The Cindy Sheehans and Jane Fondas of the nation got bolder, spurred on by the silence of those who kept their medals and memories locked away. It seemed as though there was no stopping the force of those who sought to bring the mightiest nation on earth to her knees.

But then, the antiwar groups announced plans to begin their next march at the Vietnam Wall. Fifty-eight thousand names cried out in protest, and America heard the call of her fallen.




Our Mission Statement
1. Gathering of Eagles is non-partisan. While each member has his or her own political beliefs, our common love and respect for America and her heroes is what brings us together.

2. We are a non-violent, non-confrontational group. We look to defend, not attack. Our focus is guarding our memorials and their grounds.

3. We believe that the war memorials are sacred ground; as such, we will not allow them to be desecrated, used as props for political statements, or treated with anything less than the solemn and heartfelt respect they–and the heroes they honor–deserve.

4. We are wholly and forever committed to our brothers and sisters in uniform. As veterans, we understand their incredible and noble sacrifices, made of their own accord for a nation they love more than life itself. As family members, we stand by them, and as Americans, we thank God for them.

5. We believe in and would give our lives for the precious freedoms found in our Constitution. We believe that our freedom of speech is one of the greatest things our country espouses, and we absolutely hold that any American citizen has the right to express his or her approval or disapproval with any policy, law, or action of our nation and her government in a peaceful manner as afforded by the laws of our land.

6. However, we are adamantly opposed to the use of violence, vandalism, physical or verbal assaults on our veterans, and the destruction or desecration of our memorials. By defending and honoring these sacred places, we defend and honor those whose blood gave all of us the right to speak as freely as our minds think.

7. We vehemently oppose the notion that it is possible to “support the troops but not the war.” We are opposed to those groups who would claim support for the troops yet engage in behavior that is demeaning and abusive to the men and women who wear our nation’s uniform.

8. We believe in freedom at all costs, including our own lives. We served to protect the freedoms Americans enjoy, and we agree with Thomas Jefferson’s assertion that “From time to time, the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

9. We will accept nothing less than total, unqualified victory in the current conflict. Surrender is not an option, nor is defeat.

10. We stand to challenge any group that seeks the destruction of our nation, its founding precepts of liberty and freedom, or those who have given of themselves to secure those things for another generation. We will be silent no more.

[AFE7FATMAN]

In Summary

Promises to Keep
By John Cory
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022207J.shtml

What the hell can you say? Veterans tossed aside like broken toys, discarded in the schoolyard of war. And everyone shouts, "This can't happen in America," when they should be shouting, "This can't happen in America - again!" There it is.

See, the dead are at peace, buried and gone. But the maimed wander the streets forever, reminding us of our sins. Support the troops over there so we don't have to support them over here.

That's the thing about survival; you've committed the ultimate sin and returned, dragging the dusty ghosts of war around your ankles and behind your eyes. Your lips taste of the cordite and sulfur and worse yet, you smell of need.

And now you're a stranger in a strange land. Everyone speaks a foreign language while your native tongue is Grunt. You speak security perimeters, RPGs and IEDs and how to "light 'em up." The System speaks bureaucrat, flinging form names and numbers that translate to deny, decline and delay. Counselors and "advisers" speak in acronym sentences that obfuscate and avoid. A grateful nation - sort of.

Then you wander into your previous life, where they speak of things that you have no clue about. Their language is familiar but alien at the same time. Lives have continued while yours was suspended somewhere between the duffle bag rag and death takes a holiday

They kept living forward while you spent ages every day living your life backward, remembering yesterday just to have a reason for making it into tomorrow.

A war veteran. That's what you are now. Don't mean nothin'. A pawn for politicians, a piece of your former self. Your songs are silent syllables and your dreams are closed doors without handles.
Out there you rely on your Six, you trust the Point Man, and you know "Abilene" and "Racine Bob" have your back. But here - here, they shake your hand with a smile that measures you for out-of-sight shelf space. The discount rack. Your name, to be whispered when the children are not around. And you hear the phrases: "Oh, he hasn't been the same since he got back, just drifting and distant. Not the friendly guy he used to be. Not the same." Like a poor, crazy relative come to visit, to be tolerated until it's time to leave.


And still others want to know what it was like? Must have been hell, huh?

Hell? No. Hell is a dark room shared with rats and cockroaches while praying someone will come by and roll you over so you don't keep getting bedsores. Hell is counting the flakes of peeling paint on the wall just to kill time, to take your mind off the pain. Hell is paperwork in triplicate requiring proof that you did not intentionally run into that bullet in your spine but can provide the name and description of the alleged enemy who allegedly shot you. Hell, my friend, is hearing that your spouse and high-school-age kids working three and four part-time jobs make just enough money to disqualify you from financial aid, but not enough to make ends meet.

There's a war on, you know. Budget cuts and tax breaks for the wealthy; that's what fuels the war effort. You act as though you've given an arm or a leg for your country. But if you do get disability pay - Buy Bonds! After taxes, of course.

Cowboy up, man! A little gunfire never hurt anybody.

They'll glue you like a hood ornament to the front of a parade float to raise money for politicians or make stirring pious patriotic speeches and then turn away with embarrassment while you gyrate and hobble and scootch into your wheelchair. They'll try to hide it, but you can see that look: it's pity, not patriotic pride. It's that "oh poor thing" blush while whispering thanks to the gods that it's you instead of them.

A war veteran. One night alone is too many, and a hundred nights alone is not enough. Try putting that into words that others can understand. Try explaining why the Fourth of July takes you back to Haifa Street or Vin Loc or the Ashau Valley or any of a thousand little villages in a thousand days of war.

Offer up a tale of how the last explosion blew someone apart so powerfully that it embedded bone fragments through the metal roof of a truck. Then watch the reaction. Lost in translation, man.

Watch the eyes go blank and hear the rush of rationalization, "It's over. Let it go and just get on with life. At least you're alive." :toast


Don't you get it, Vet? You make them uncomfortable. You remind them their kin is safe and clean while they blow the trumpets of glorious war.


You are the face, the name, the body offered up on this sacrilegious altar of lies and doom. You're the truth, the in-your-face reality of every falsehood uttered between their lips. You dared survive and now they must be held accountable. And all they can do is squirm.

Here's the deal, and it is simple.
Every Congressional office should be flooded with phone calls and email demanding not only an investigation, but also immediate funding and corrective action of the treatment of our veterans. \\

Viewers should require every media outlet that has dedicated untold hours and resources to the Anna Nicole Smith story to cover the failure of this administration to prioritize the healing and medical support of our troops and the wounded and their families. ABC, so willing to air slanderous 9/11

material, should send their Extreme Makeover Teams to every VA hospital and regional center in the country to show their support of the American military and veterans.

And every multinational corporation that has profited from the war, or will reap ludicrous benefits from tax cuts, should be inundated by consumers to donate time, money, and material to the very souls who have paid for their greedy lobbying.

And every candidate must utilize each and every public appearance to speak out on behalf of veterans and push Congress to pass immediate legislative solutions.

Surely the five-day workweek could be enforced long enough to take care of our most precious resource - our fellow American citizens, our friends and our family.

Veterans are not looking for anything special, just the decency of a promise kept. No one owes anything more or less. A promise kept - duty, honor, and country.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Did Obama really slip or was he telling the truth "Wasted Lives"?

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Hospital Officials Knew of Neglect

Complaints About Walter Reed Were Voiced for Years

By Anne Hull and Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, March 1, 2007; A01

Top officials at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, including the Army's surgeon general, have heard complaints about outpatient neglect from family members, veterans groups and members of Congress for more than three years.

A procession of Pentagon and Walter Reed officials expressed surprise last week about the living conditions and bureaucratic nightmares faced by wounded soldiers staying at the D.C. medical facility. But as far back as 2003, the commander of Walter Reed, Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, who is now the Army's top medical officer, was told that soldiers who were wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan were languishing and lost on the grounds, according to interviews.

Steve Robinson, director of veterans affairs at Veterans for America, said he ran into Kiley in the foyer of the command headquarters at Walter Reed shortly after the Iraq war began and told him that "there are people in the barracks who are drinking themselves to death and people who are sharing drugs and people not getting the care they need."

"I met guys who weren't going to appointments because the hospital didn't even know they were there," Robinson said. Kiley told him to speak to a sergeant major, a top enlisted officer.

A recent Washington Post series detailed conditions at Walter Reed, including those at Building 18, a dingy former hotel on Georgia Avenue where the wounded were housed among mice, mold, rot and cockroaches.

Kiley lives across the street from Building 18. From his quarters, he can see the scrappy building and busy traffic the soldiers must cross to get to the 113-acre post. At a news conference last week, Kiley, who declined several requests for interviews for this article, said that the problems of Building 18 "weren't serious and there weren't a lot of them." He also said they were not "emblematic of a process of Walter Reed that has abandoned soldiers and their families."

But according to interviews, Kiley, his successive commanders at Walter Reed and various top noncommissioned officers in charge of soldiers' lives have heard a stream of complaints about outpatient treatment over the past several years. The complaints have surfaced at town hall meetings for staff and soldiers, at commanders' "sensing sessions" in which soldiers or officers are encouraged to speak freely, and in several inspector general's reports detailing building conditions, safety issues and other matters.

Retired Maj. Gen. Kenneth L. Farmer Jr., who commanded Walter Reed for two years until last August, said that he was aware of outpatient problems and that there were "ongoing reviews and discussions" about how to fix them when he left. He said he shared many of those issues with Kiley, his immediate commander. Last summer when he turned over command to Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman, Farmer said, "there were a variety of things we identified as opportunities for continued improvement."

In 2004, Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.) and his wife stopped visiting the wounded at Walter Reed out of frustration. Young said he voiced concerns to commanders over troubling incidents he witnessed but was rebuffed or ignored. "When Bev or I would bring problems to the attention of authorities of Walter Reed, we were made to feel very uncomfortable," said Young, who began visiting the wounded recuperating at other facilities.

Beverly Young said she complained to Kiley several times. She once visited a soldier who was lying in urine on his mattress pad in the hospital. When a nurse ignored her, Young said, "I went flying down to Kevin Kiley's office again, and got nowhere. He has skirted this stuff for five years and blamed everyone else."

Young said that even after Kiley left Walter Reed to become the Army's surgeon general, "if anything could have been done to correct problems, he could have done it."

Soldiers and family members say their complaints have been ignored by commanders at many levels.

More than a year ago, Chief Warrant Officer Jayson Kendrick, an outpatient, attended a sensing session, the Army's version of a town hall meeting where concerns are raised in front of the chain of command. Kendrick spoke about the deterioration and crowded conditions of the outpatient administrative building, which had secondhand computers and office furniture shoved into cubicles, creating chaos for family members. An inspector general attending the meeting "chuckled and said, 'What do you want, pool tables and Ping-Pong tables in there?' " Kendrick recalled.

Army officials have been at other meetings in which outpatient problems were detailed.

On Feb. 17, 2005, Kiley sat in a congressional hearing room as Sgt. 1st Class John Allen, injured in Afghanistan in 2002, described what he called a "dysfunctional system" at Walter Reed in which "soldiers go months without pay, nowhere to live, their medical appointments canceled." Allen added: "The result is a massive stress and mental pain causing further harm. It would be very easy to correct the situation if the command element climate supported it. The command staff at Walter Reed needs to show their care."

In 2006, Joe Wilson, a clinical social worker in the department of psychiatry, briefed several colonels at Walter Reed about problems and steps that could be taken to improve living conditions at Building 18. Last March, he also shared the findings of a survey his department had conducted.

It found that 75 percent of outpatients said their experience at Walter Reed had been "stressful" and that there was a "significant population of unsatisfied, frustrated, disenfranchised patients." Military commanders played down the findings.

"These people knew about it," Wilson said. "The bottom line is, people knew about it but the culture of the Army didn't allow it to be addressed."

Last October, Joyce Rumsfeld, the wife of then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, was taken to Walter Reed by a friend concerned about outpatient treatment. She attended a weekly meeting, called Girls Time Out, at which wives, girlfriends and mothers of soldiers exchange stories and offer support.

According to three people who attended the gathering, Rumsfeld listened quietly. Some of the women did not know who she was. At the end of the meeting, Rumsfeld asked one of the staff members whether she thought that the soldiers her husband was meeting on his visits had been handpicked to paint a rosy picture of their time there. The answer was yes.

When Walter Reed officials found out that Rumsfeld had visited, they told the friend who brought her -- a woman who had volunteered there many times -- that she was no longer welcome on the grounds.

Last week, the Army relieved of duty several low-ranking soldiers who managed outpatients. This week, in a move that some soldiers viewed as reprisal for speaking to the media, the wounded troops were told that early-morning room inspections would be held and that further contact with reporters is prohibited.

Yesterday, Walter Reed received an unscheduled inspection by a hospital accreditation agency. Members of the Joint Commission, formerly the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, began a two-day visit "for cause" to examine discharge practices that have allowed soldiers to go missing or unaccounted for after they are released from the hospital.

==================

Red-staters probably don't read newspapers (has Fox carried this story?), but this story is a huge anti-recruitment poster.

[whottt]

Never trust someone who misspells fuck. Taint right....

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Whott, go fnck yourself.

[1369]

MSNBC saying the CG for Walter Reed has been relieved of his command duties.

Link (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17402872/)

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The military always adores and respects the "chain of command", but when something bad happens, the responsibility always stops well below the top echelons.

[1369]

The military always adores and respects the "chain of command", but when something bad happens, the responsibility always stops well below the top echelons.


Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman, who was commanding general of the North Atlantic Regional Medical Command as well as Walter Reed hospital, was relieved of command by Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey.

I'd say that's about as "top echelon" as you're going to get.

[xrayzebra]

The military always adores and respects the "chain of command", but when something bad happens, the responsibility always stops well below the top echelons.

Your stupidity is showing again. CG=Commanding
General. :rolleyes

[1369]

CNN also reporting that the Secretary Of The Army has resigned as well.

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amazing, Sec of Army is VERY high up. exception that proves the rule :lol

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http://www.uclick.com/feature/07/03/01/po070301.gif

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Waxman to Force Walter Reed Ex-Chief to Talk About Problems, Contract

By Justin Rood and Anna Schecter
ABC News

Friday 02 March 2007

A powerful Democratic congressman is challenging the Pentagon, which is attempting to block the former chief of Walter Reed Army Medical Center from testifying before Congress next week.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Henry Waxman, D-Calif., wants to ask Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman about a contract to manage the medical center awarded to a company that had documented troubles fulfilling a government contract to deliver ice to victims of Hurricane Katrina.

The Pentagon has refused to allow Weightman to testify. Waxman's staff has confirmed the congressman has issued his first subpoena as a committee chairman this session to legally compel Weightman's testimony.

According to a letter from Waxman to Weightman posted today on the committee's Web site, the chairman believes the Walter Reed contract may have pushed dozens of health care workers to leave jobs at the troubled medical center, which he says in turn threatened the quality of care for hundreds of military personnel receiving treatment there.

Weightman had been slated to testify before Congress on Monday. The Army has tried to withdraw him from the hearing. Waxman's office confirmed the congressman plans to force the officer to appear by issuing a subpoena for his testimony.

The Army did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the matter. A call to Weightman's home went unanswered.

In the letter, Waxman charged that the Army used an unusual process to award a five-year, $120 million contract to manage the center to a company owned by a former executive of Halliburton, the scandal-prone government contractor once operated by Vice President Dick Cheney.

In 2004, the Army determined that Walter Reed's federal employees could operate the medical center more efficiently than IAP Worldwide Services, which is operated by the former Halliburton executive, Al Neffgen, Waxman wrote. After IAP protested, the Army "unilaterally" increased the employees' estimated costs by $7 million, making IAP appear cheaper, Waxman said. Rules barred Walter Reed employees from appealing the decision, Waxman wrote, and in January 2006 the Army gave the contract to IAP.

According to an internal memo written by a senior Walter Reed administrator and obtained by Waxman, the decision to outsource to IAP led the center's skilled personnel to leave Walter Reed "in droves," fearing they would be laid off when the contractor took over. In the last year, Waxman found, over 250 of 300 government employees left the center. The lack of staffing put patient care "at risk of mission failure," warned an internal Army memo obtained by the congressman.

Some of the problems recently revealed at Walter Reed "may be attributable to a lack of skilled government technicians on staff," Waxman wrote in the letter.

A spokeswoman for IAP did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A message left at the home number belonging to Al Neffgen was not immediately returned.

===============

Halliburton's evil alumni doing their sinister deeds.
This story seems to be growing very long, durable legs.

[boutons_]

Firing saddens many who knew general in S.A.

Web Posted: 03/02/2007 10:43 PM CST

Sig Christenson And Scott Huddleston
Express-News

When people talked Friday of Army Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman, they didn't sound like they were describing a man who had just been fired.

Gentle. Caring. A soldier's general, they said.

"Two years ago I was working in the Army surgeon general's office, and somebody's comment to me about Gen. Weightman was that there are some people that can be counted upon to do the right thing every time," said Brig. Gen. James K. Gilman, commander of Brooke Army Medical Center and a cardiologist trained in the Alamo City.

If Weightman made mistakes, no one in the Army was saying what they were.

But his dismissal as commander of Walter Reed Army Medical Center in the wake of a scandal over living conditions there left friends, colleagues and patients in San Antonio stunned and angry.

One associate, who asked not to be named, said Weightman, a veteran of the Panama invasion and Gulf War I, walked into a "pre-existing condition" when he took command of Walter Reed in late August 2006.

For seven months in 2003, Rosie Babin lived at Walter Reed while her son Alan Babin of Round Rock was in the surgical intensive care unit.

Babin was near death, his body badly infected after having much of his abdomen shot out in Iraq. Janitors would mop other rooms and the hallway, then enter her son's room without emptying the bucket.

"I would think, 'Oh-h-h-h, there goes bacteria from that room into this room,'" she said.

Things were far cleaner at BAMC's intensive care unit, where he spent the winter of 2003. The hospital, which opened in 1996, is among the newest of eight in the Great Plains Regional Medical Command and has "very, very good facilities," Gilman said.

"I felt like we had arrived at the Taj Mahal," Babin recalled.

The Washington Post said Weightman worked to improve conditions for outpatients and cut caseloads at Walter Reed.

BAMC — which like other medical facilities will be examined closely in the wake of the uproar about Walter Reed — has taken in more than 3,000 wounded troops but has enough capacity to handle dozens more.

Talk of Weightman's exit Friday prompted strong reactions on Fort Sam, where for two years he led the post and was commander of the Army Medical Department Center and School.

And the shake-up isn't over, with the spotlight now on yet another former Fort Sam commander, Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, an obstetrician.

He was the post commander and led the Army Medical Department Center and School here until June 21, 2002, before taking over at Walter Reed. In 2004, Kiley was promoted to Army surgeon general.

Fort Sam Houston spokesman Phil Reidinger would not comment on the Army's decision, noting there "is nothing I can say to change it."

But he described Weightman, a friend and one-time fellow infantry officer , as "a consummate professional." He once was the 82nd Airborne Division's surgeon and earned a Senior Parachutist's Badge with combat star after the Dec. 20, 1989, Panama invasion.

"When he was giving the orders or directions to a public affairs officer, the first directive was to do the right thing," Reidinger said of his time working for Weightman at Fort Sam.

BAMC officers say Weightman was known for making weekly visits with patients and families at the hospital and the nearby Soldier and Family Assistance Center, at night and on weekends.

"He's one of the best commanders I have ever worked for," said Col. Carol McNeill, deputy commander for nursing at BAMC. "He continually came by to check on the wounded."

Kim Smith, whose son, Army Pvt. Robby Frantz, was killed in Iraq in 2003, said she saw Weightman at several events on the post. They included Thanksgiving dinners for the wounded at BAMC and at several funerals from San Antonio-area service members killed in the war.

Smith thought what happened to him wasn't right — especially given his short tenure at Walter Reed. She said making him the scapegoat would be a travesty.

J.R. Martinez, 23, a former Army specialist who was badly burned in Iraq, said the hospital's problems didn't happen overnight.

"Nothing in this world happens just like that," he said.
[email protected]

[boutons_]

Not 'a Good-News Story'

Why is Gen. Kiley back in charge at Walter Reed?

Friday, March 2, 2007; A12

YESTERDAY THE Post reported that Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley heard years ago from a veterans advocate and even a member of Congress that outpatient care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center was distressingly squalid and disorganized. That commander proceeded to do little, even though he lives across the street from the outpatient facilities in a spacious Georgian house. Also yesterday, the Army announced that Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman, the head of Walter Reed since August, had been relieved of his command. His temporary replacement? None other than Gen. Kiley.

Here's where the story stops making sense. Much of The Post's article detailed the abuse by omission that Gen. Kiley, not Gen. Weightman, committed, first as head of Walter Reed, then in his current post as Army surgeon general. Gen. Weightman, who very well might deserve his disgrace, has commanded Walter Reed for only half a year, while Gen. Kiley, now back in charge of Walter Reed, headed the hospital and its outpatient facilities for two years and has led the Army's medical command since. Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.) and his wife say they repeatedly told Gen. Kiley about unhealthful conditions in outpatient facilities.

While Gen. Kiley was ignoring Walter Reed's outpatients, he was assuring Congress that he was doing just the opposite. A staffer for Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) told us yesterday that Gen. Kiley told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in 2005 that the performance of the medical holdover program, which covers 69 of the 76 residents of Building 18, "is a good-news story." In response to questions Mr. Davis submitted, Gen. Kiley stated, "the Army Surgeon General has made their care the medical treatment facilities' top priority." At best, Gen. Kiley was ignorant of the conditions at Walter Reed.

We are glad that the Army is finally taking the issue of outpatient care seriously enough to effectively end the career of a major general for presiding over the disgraceful condition of Building 18. But the evidence compiled so far suggests that Gen. Kiley has been more complicit in the scandalous neglect of Walter Reed's outpatient facilities for longer than Gen. Weightman has been. It also indicates that the Army's reshuffle is really about projecting the appearance of accountability, not punishing those most responsible. As Mr. Young said yesterday of Gen. Weightman, "I don't know him. But I know he's the fall guy."

===============

So, will Kiley escape?

Looks like Waxman needs to subpoena Kiley as well as Weightman.

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'It Is Just Not Walter Reed'

Soldiers Share Troubling Stories Of Military Health Care Across U.S.

By Anne Hull and Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, March 5, 2007; A01

Ray Oliva went into the spare bedroom in his home in Kelseyville, Calif., to wrestle with his feelings. He didn't know a single soldier at Walter Reed, but he felt he knew them all. He worried about the wounded who were entering the world of military health care, which he knew all too well. His own VA hospital in Livermore was a mess. The gown he wore was torn. The wheelchairs were old and broken.

"It is just not Walter Reed," Oliva slowly tapped out on his keyboard at 4:23 in the afternoon on Friday. "The VA hospitals are not good either except for the staff who work so hard. It brings tears to my eyes when I see my brothers and sisters having to deal with these conditions. I am 70 years old, some say older than dirt but when I am with my brothers and sisters we become one and are made whole again."

Oliva is but one quaking voice in a vast outpouring of accounts filled with emotion and anger about the mistreatment of wounded outpatients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Stories of neglect and substandard care have flooded in from soldiers, their family members, veterans, doctors and nurses working inside the system. They describe depressing living conditions for outpatients at other military bases around the country, from Fort Lewis in Washington state to Fort Dix in New Jersey. They tell stories -- their own versions, not verified -- of callous responses to combat stress and a system ill equipped to handle another generation of psychologically scarred vets.

The official reaction to the revelations at Walter Reed has been swift, and it has exposed the potential political costs of ignoring Oliva's 24.3 million comrades -- America's veterans -- many of whom are among the last standing supporters of the Iraq war. In just two weeks, the Army secretary has been fired, a two-star general relieved of command and two special commissions appointed; congressional subcommittees are lining up for hearings, the first today at Walter Reed; and the president, in his weekly radio address, redoubled promises to do right by the all-volunteer force, 1.5 million of whom have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But much deeper has been the reaction outside Washington, including from many of the 600,000 new veterans who left the service after Iraq and Afghanistan. Wrenching questions have dominated blogs, talk shows, editorial cartoons, VFW spaghetti suppers and the solitary late nights of soldiers and former soldiers who fire off e-mails to reporters, members of Congress and the White House -- looking, finally, for attention and solutions.

Several forces converged to create this intense reaction. A new Democratic majority in Congress is willing to criticize the administration. Senior retired officers pounded the Pentagon with sharp questions about what was going on. Up to 40 percent of the troops fighting in Iraq are National Guard members and reservists -- "our neighbors," said Ron Glasser, a physician and author of a book about the wounded. "It all adds up and reaches a kind of tipping point," he said. On top of all that, America had believed the government's assurances that the wounded were being taken care of. "The country is embarrassed" to know otherwise, Glasser said.

( Like Iraq, like Katrina, the VA scandal will be indelible shit stain on dubya/dickhead/rummy/Repugs. Their legacy is in the toilet. Like all their other lies, "support out troups" if one huge fucking lie. )

The scandal has reverberated through generations of veterans. "It's been a potent reminder of past indignities and past traumas," said Thomas A. Mellman, a professor of psychiatry at Howard University who specializes in post-traumatic stress and has worked in Veterans Affairs hospitals. "The fact that it's been responded to so quickly has created mixed feelings -- gratification, but obvious regret and anger that such attention wasn't given before, especially for Vietnam veterans."

Across the country, some military quarters for wounded outpatients are in bad shape, according to interviews, Government Accountability Office reports and transcripts of congressional testimony. The mold, mice and rot of Walter Reed's Building 18 compose a familiar scenario for many soldiers back from Iraq or Afghanistan who were shipped to their home posts for treatment. Nearly 4,000 outpatients are currently in the military's Medical Holding or Medical Holdover companies, which oversee the wounded. Soldiers and veterans report bureaucratic disarray similar to Walter Reed's: indifferent, untrained staff; lost paperwork; medical appointments that drop from the computers; and long waits for consultations.

( The Repugs yet again willfully misgoverning to get the rabble and sheeple to hate government, to hate even more paying taxes, to support unlimted tax cuts, to want to "drown govt in a bathtub".)

Sandy Karen was horrified when her 21-year-old son was discharged from the Naval Medical Center in San Diego a few months ago and told to report to the outpatient barracks, only to find the room swarming with fruit flies, trash overflowing and a syringe on the table. "The staff sergeant says, 'Here are your linens' to my son, who can't even stand up," said Karen, of Brookeville, Md. "This kid has an open wound, and I'm going to put him in a room with fruit flies?" She took her son to a hotel instead.

"My concern is for the others, who don't have a parent or someone to fight for them," Karen said. "These are just kids. Who would have ever looked in on my son?"

Capt. Leslie Haines was sent to Fort Knox in Kentucky for treatment in 2004 after being flown out of Iraq. "The living conditions were the worst I'd ever seen for soldiers," he said. "Paint peeling, mold, windows that didn't work. I went to the hospital chaplain to get them to issue blankets and linens. There were no nurses. You had wounded and injured leading the troops."

Hundreds of soldiers contacted The Washington Post through telephone calls and e-mails, many of them describing their bleak existence in Medhold.

From Fort Campbell in Kentucky: "There were yellow signs on the door stating our barracks had asbestos."

From Fort Bragg in North Carolina: "They are on my [expletive] like a diaper. . . . there are people getting chewed up everyday."

From Fort Dix in New Jersey: "Scare tactics are used against soldiers who will write sworn statement to assist fellow soldiers for their medical needs."

From Fort Irwin in California: "Most of us have had to sign waivers where we understand that the housing we were in failed to meet minimal government standards."

Soldiers back from Iraq worry that their psychological problems are only beginning to surface. "The hammer is just coming down, I can feel it," said retired Maj. Anthony DeStefano of New Jersey, describing his descent into post-traumatic stress and the Army's propensity to medicate rather than talk. When he returned home, Army doctors put him on the antipsychotic drug Seroquel. "That way, you can screw their lights out and they won't feel a thing," he said of patients like himself. "By the time they understand what is going on, they are through the Board and stuck with an unfavorable percentage of disability" benefits.

Nearly 64,000 of the more than 184,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who have sought VA health care have been diagnosed with potential symptoms of post-traumatic stress, drug abuse or other mental disorders as of the end of June, according to the latest report by the Veterans Health Administration. Of those, nearly 30,000 have possible post-traumatic stress disorder, the report said.

VA hospitals are also receiving a surge of new patients after more than five years of combat. At the sprawling James J. Peters VA Medical Center in the Bronx, N.Y., Spec. Roberto Reyes Jr. lies nearly immobile and unable to talk. Once a strapping member of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry, Reyes got too close to an improvised explosive device in Iraq and was sent to Walter Reed, where doctors did all they could before shipping him to the VA for the remainder of his life. A cloudy bag of urine hangs from his wheelchair. His mother and his aunt are constant bedside companions; Reyes, 25, likes for them to get two inches from his face, so he can pull on their noses with the few fingers he can still control.

Maria Mendez, his aunt, complained about the hospital staff. "They fight over who's going to have to give him a bath -- in front of him!" she said. Reyes suffered third-degree burns on his leg when a nurse left him in a shower unattended. He was unable to move himself away from the scalding water. His aunt found out only later, when she saw the burns.

Among the most aggrieved are veterans who have lived with the open secret of substandard, underfunded care in the 154 VA hospitals and hundreds of community health centers around the country. They vented their fury in thousands of e-mails and phone calls and in chat rooms.

"I have been trying to get someone, ANYBODY, to look into my allegations" at the Dayton VA, pleaded Darrell Hampton.

"I'm calling from Summerville, South Carolina, and I have a story to tell," began Horace Williams, 62. "I'm a Marine from the Vietnam era, and it took me 20 years to get the benefits I was entitled to."

The VA has a backlog of 400,000 benefit claims, including many concerning mental health. Vietnam vets whose post-traumatic stress has been triggered by images of war in Iraq are flooding the system for help and are being turned away.

For years, politicians have received letters from veterans complaining of bad care across the country. Last week, Walter Reed was besieged by members of Congress who toured the hospital and Building 18 to gain first-hand knowledge of the conditions. Many of them have been visiting patients in the hospital for years, but now they are issuing news releases decrying the mistreatment of the wounded.

Sgt. William A. Jones had recently written to his Arizona senators complaining about abuse at the VA hospital in Phoenix. He had written to the president before that. "Not one person has taken the time to respond in any manner," Jones said in an e-mail.

From Ray Oliva, the distraught 70-year-old vet from Kelseyville, Calif., came this: "I wrote a letter to Senators Feinstein and Boxer a few years ago asking why I had to wear Hospital gowns that had holes in them and torn and why some of the Vets had to ask for beds that had good mattress instead of broken and old. Wheel chairs old and tired and the list goes on and on. I never did get a response."

Oliva lives in a house on a tranquil lake. His hearing is shot from working on fighter jets on the flight line. "Gun plumbers," as they called themselves, didn't get earplugs in the late 1950s, when Oliva served with the Air Force. His hands had been burned from touching the skin of the aircraft. All is minor compared with what he later saw at the VA hospital where he received care.

"I sat with guys who'd served in 'Nam," Oliva said. "We had terrible problems with the VA. But we were all so powerless to do anything about them. Just like Walter Reed."

Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

===================

This a great recruiting poster for all those kids who dubya wants to sign to go waster their lives in Iraq.

dubya's estate tax cut for the super rich will cost $745 B.
Could any of that $745B been spent on dubya maimed vets?
The Repugs sought election exclusively to enrich and protect the super-rich and the corps.

you're doing a heckuva job, dubya

22 more months ...

[boutons_]

March 5, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist

Valor and Squalor

By PAUL KRUGMAN

When Salon, the online magazine, reported on mistreatment of veterans at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center two years ago, officials simply denied that there were any problems. And they initially tried to brush off last month’s exposé in The Washington Post.

But this time, with President Bush’s approval at 29 percent, Democrats in control of Congress, and Donald Rumsfeld no longer defense secretary — Robert Gates, his successor, appears genuinely distressed at the situation — the whitewash didn’t stick.

Yet even now it’s not clear whether the public will be told the full story, which is that the horrors of Walter Reed’s outpatient unit are no aberration. For all its cries of “support the troops,” the Bush administration has treated veterans’ medical care the same way it treats everything else: nickel-and-diming the needy, protecting the incompetent and privatizing everything it can.

What makes this a particular shame is that in the Clinton years, veterans’ health care — like the Federal Emergency Management Agency — became a shining example of how good leadership can revitalize a troubled government program. By the early years of this decade the Veterans Health Administration was, by many measures, providing the highest-quality health care in America. (It probably still is: Walter Reed is a military facility, not run by the V.H.A.)

But as with FEMA, the Bush administration has done all it can to undermine that achievement. And the Walter Reed scandal is another Hurricane Katrina: the moment when the administration’s misgovernment became obvious to everyone.

The problem starts with money. The administration uses carefully cooked numbers to pretend that it has been generous to veterans, but the historical data contained in its own budget for fiscal 2008 tell the true story. The quagmire in Iraq has vastly increased the demands on the Veterans Administration, yet since 2001 federal outlays for veterans’ medical care have actually lagged behind overall national health spending.

To save money, the administration has been charging veterans for many formerly free services. For example, in 2005 Salon reported that some Walter Reed patients were forced to pay hundreds of dollars each month for their meals.

More important, the administration has broken longstanding promises of lifetime health care to those who defend our nation. Two months before the invasion of Iraq the V.H.A., which previously offered care to all veterans, introduced severe new restrictions on who is entitled to enroll in its health care system. As the agency’s Web site helpfully explains, veterans whose income exceeds as little as $27,790 a year, and who lack “special eligibilities such as a compensable service connected condition or recent combat service,” will be turned away.

So when you hear stories of veterans who spend months or years fighting to get the care they deserve, trying to prove that their injuries are service-related, remember this: all this red tape was created not by the inherent inefficiency of government bureaucracy, but by the Bush administration’s penny-pinching.

But money is only part of the problem.

We know from Hurricane Katrina postmortems that one of the factors degrading FEMA’s effectiveness was the Bush administration’s relentless push to outsource and privatize disaster management, which demoralized government employees and drove away many of the agency’s most experienced professionals. It appears that the same thing has been happening to veterans’ care.

The redoubtable Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, points out that IAP Worldwide Services, a company run by two former Halliburton executives, received a large contract to run Walter Reed under suspicious circumstances: the Army reversed the results of an audit concluding that government employees could do the job more cheaply.

And Mr. Waxman, who will be holding a hearing on the issue today, appears to have solid evidence, including an internal Walter Reed memo from last year, that the prospect of privatization led to a FEMA-type exodus of skilled personnel.

What comes next? Francis J. Harvey, who as far as I can tell was the first defense contractor appointed secretary of the Army, has been forced out. But the parallels between what happened at Walter Reed and what happened to New Orleans — not to mention parallels with the mother of all scandals, the failed reconstruction of Iraq — tell us that the roots of the scandal run far deeper than the actions of a few bad men.

==================

you're doing a heckuva job supporting our troops, dubya

[clambake]

For this to be "a story", it needs to have an element of surprise. Even before going to war, this administration's behavoir surfaced. These soldiers have worn out their usefullness. Just another problem sweeped under the giant WH rug.

Weapons inspectors wore out their usefullness.
Wilson wouldn't play ball. Worn out
Sheinsiki. Worn out
Powell. Worn out
Anyone that disagrees? Worn out

Hell, they wouldn't even keep the retarded Bush's in the family photos.

How is this a surprise?

[boutons_]

March 5, 2007

Focus on Veterans’ Chief as Inquiries on Care Begin

By LYNETTE CLEMETSON

WASHINGTON, March 4 — As President Bush ordered an investigation of the military’s care of wounded soldiers and veterans last week, Jim Nicholson, secretary of veterans affairs, darted between events, seeking to put a positive public face on his beleaguered agency.

In Chicago on Friday, Mr. Nicholson spoke to a group of Navy boot camp graduates, toured the North Chicago V.A. Medical Center, and visited a private trauma clinic to gather ideas on providing special care for injuries like brain trauma.

“If there is even one injured veteran that falls through the cracks then that is too many,” he said in a telephone interview at the end of the day. “It pains me to hear about problems in our system, but I am a competitor, and I am finding that it is strengthening my resolve and deepening my commitment.”

( vomit! I'm all about ME, not about the vets )

In the wake of the shake-up last week in the Defense Department medical system — which included the firing of the two-star general in charge of Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the resignation of Francis J. Harvey as secretary of the Army — the Department of Veterans Affairs is facing intense political and public scrutiny. The agency operates the country’s largest health care system, serving more than 5.5 million veterans a year.

On Monday, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is to conduct a hearing at Walter Reed on the problems there, and the Senate Armed Services Committee has set a hearing for Tuesday. Mr. Nicholson’s agency is also likely to come under scrutiny at the hearings.

“I welcome Congressional oversight, and the oversight of the president and the commission he is forming,” Mr. Nicholson said. “I welcome them looking at us and taking a measure of how we are doing, so we can improve any deficiencies that are found.”

( vomit! You react to vets' problems, you're supposed to prevent vets' problems )

Mr. Nicholson, 69, a Vietnam War veteran and past chairman of the Republican National Committee, was appointed by Mr. Bush to lead the department in 2005.

( yet another incompetent Repug mucky-muck political operative parachuted into a job over his head and with no experience. FEMA/Brownie all over again )

He has been accused by some veterans and the organizations that represent them of being primarily a mouthpiece for the Bush administration and of being slow to respond to increasing strains on his agency as returning soldiers move from facilities like Walter Reed, which is run by the Defense Department, into the veterans affairs system.

Critics say he has under-emphasized his agency’s budget needs to Congress, has not responded to calls for more mental health workers and brain trauma specialists and has failed to overhaul disability claims procedures. Some leaders of veterans groups say Mr. Nicholson is less communicative than his predecessors.

“We’re supposed to be partners, but there is no free flow of information since he took over,” said Bill Bradshaw, director of National Veterans Service for the Veterans of Foreign Wars. “We often learn about changes after they are done, and there is little consultation.”

Mr. Nicholson says his agency is making changes. It is putting procedures in place to screen all veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan for signs of brain trauma and the agency is also researching how to shorten the claims process, he said.

“I am willing to take responsibility for the mistakes in the system, but at the same time I am entitled to credit for all the good things and advances happening at the V.A.,”

( vomit! I'm all about ME ANd MY REPUG CAREER FIRST, not about the vets )

Mr. Nicholson said. He said the V.A. system had been cited “as among the best, if not the best” integrated health systems in the country. Mr. Nicholson called the 2008 budget request of nearly $87 billion “a landmark request” and said that V.A. financing had increased by 77 percent since Mr. Bush took office in 2001. (Critics point out that there are also increased demands from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.)

( that "best", as with FEMA, was achieved under Clinton, and degraded under dubya/Repugs )

Friends and colleagues say that Mr. Nicholson, a deeply religious man from dirt-poor Iowa roots, has maintained a chin-up response. But his wife, Suzanne, said the scrutiny and criticisms had shaken him.

“He’s not one to show his emotions. When he is upset and worried a calmness comes over him,” said Suzanne Nicholson, 62. “But it keeps him awake at night. It is terribly distressing and awful for him.”

( sniff, sniff. What about the vets lying in beds all night unattended?? )

His stoicism and determination, said his wife and close friends, are an outgrowth of his tough childhood. Born in the small, rural town of Struble, Iowa, he was the third of seven children of an alcoholic father and a devout Catholic mother who taught her children nightly catechism lessons by kerosene lamp because the family had no electricity and no car to get them to daily Mass.

( so we get a puff-piece job from wifey. WGAF what wifey thinks? )

After high school, he was accepted to West Point. He was an Army ranger and was awarded a Bronze Star in Vietnam. Later, after law school, he became a legal counsel for the Denver Home Builders Association, and later a developer.

Mr. Nicholson was viewed skeptically by some in Washington when he was elected in 1997 to succeed Haley Barbour as Republican Party chairman. But he eventually won respect, even praise, as a skilled fund-raiser and a tough, credible leader. Mr. Bush appointed him ambassador to the Vatican in 2001.

Through his varied careers, Mr. Nicholson has never run anything even close to the size of the Department of Veterans Affairs, which operates 155 medical centers and roughly 900 outpatient clinics. With a staff of 235,000, it is the second-largest government agency behind the Defense Department.

( as always with the Repugs, partisan loyalty far outweighs competence and experience. It's FEMA/Brownie all over again )

His detractors, including some leaders of veterans groups, say Mr. Nicholson has a far less cooperative relationship with their groups than his predecessors had. Some say he is more attentive to his bosses in the administration than the veterans he serves and that he lacks deep experience in veterans affairs.

( just the kind of guy needed to run VA affairs in war time )

“Mr. Nicholson is purely a political appointee who comes from a background of no involvement in veterans issues,” said David W. Gorman, executive director of Disabled American Veterans. “He very much wants to do what he believes is the right thing to do, but not knowing the system as one needs to, he is at a distinct disadvantage.”

Not all veterans representatives are as critica. John F. Sommer, executive director of the Washington office of the American Legion, the largest veterans service organization, said Mr. Nicholson had been attentive to his organization’s needs.

“Are there problems with the V.A.? Sure. But did Jim Nicholson cause the problems? I don’t think so,” Mr. Sommer said. “Especially when it comes to funding, you have to look at the amount of money the V.A. is getting from Congress.”

Some Congressional leaders say Mr. Nicholson and his agency are victims of political maneuvering. “Mr. Nicholson just happens to be in the wrong party,” said Senator Larry Craig, Republican of Idaho, the ranking member of the Committee on Veterans Affairs. “People now want to say that not only are they against the war and the way the president has handled it, but now they want to take aim at the way the government takes care of the veterans.”

( and why the fuck not "take aim" if the vet care sucks? Typical Repug, it's not a vet care problem, it's a political agenda )

More serious than complaints about Mr. Nicholson’s style are charges that he has not sufficiently addressed efficiency and preparedness.

( sorta like the entire Iraq war fiasco. It's typical of how Repugs intentionally fuck up the hard work of governing )

Linda J. Bilmes, a professor of public finance at Harvard, recently completed a study of the long-term costs of providing medical care and benefits to veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Department of Veterans Affairs, she said, “is overwhelmed in every area.”

[1369]

Just curious, do ya'll really think that the problems with the VA are new?

[boutons_]

no, but as Rich pointed out repeatedly about the VA being an example of how to run national health system efficiently, and as Nicholson says, the VA was one of the best run federal agencies after it got strong leadership and WH support under Clinton.

Under dubya, AFTER dubya made the decision to invade Iraq, his henchman anticipated the huge increase in VA claims and wrote new rules to exclude vets from care.

Look at the VA budget allocation since March 2003 and prove that it reflects the huge increase in care required to "support our (injured) troops".

And in this extremely critical period for the VA, dubya appoints an incompetent, inexperienced self-serving Repug operative way out of his depth to run VA.

[Nbadan]

the Walter Reed scandal could be another nail in privatization's coffin...

Smoking Gun: Walter Reed scandal connected to Halliburton & FEMA?


Not only is the scandalous treatment of American Troops at Walter Reed military hospital connected to Halliburton and Katrina-era FEMA (see video at link) but it's also, at its core, a deeply, deeply conservative scandal.

"Privatization," or the transfer of any and all services into the hands of market morality, is a fundamental part of the conservative project.

{For its past performance in the public sector, see Energy Crisis, California.}

This time, under some shady circumstances, a private firm IAP was given the contract to take over a number of services at Walter Reed, despite the fact that the employees' bid was lower.

Only after IAP "protested" (according to Waxman's letter to General Weightman PDF) was the employees' bid "increased" and the contract awarded to the private firm headed by ex-Halliburton official, Al Neffgen.

This privatization precipitated an 80% drop in care workers, leading to a human scandal that the market will never ever, ever be equipped to handle. It's neither the market's, nor conservatives', business. At the heart of privatization is the belief that competing desires to make a buck will "take care of everything."

Walter Reed is another in a series of tragic bottom lines.

Alertnet (http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/48845/#more)

There are things government does better, go figure....

[PixelPusher]

^I'm sure we just didn't give the free market enough time to "work itself out".

[boutons_]

March 6, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor

Casualties of the Budget Wars

By PAUL D. EATON

Fox Island, Wash.

IN his 1997 book “Dereliction of Duty,” Col. H. R. McMaster wrote that “the ‘five silent men’ on the Joint Chiefs made possible the way the United States went to war in Vietnam.” So it is today with the war in Iraq. Regrettably, the silence of our top officers has had a huge impact not just on the battlefield but also on how we have brought our injured warriors home from it. These planning failures led to the situation at Walter Reed Army Medical Center recently reported by The Washington Post, which resulted in the firings of the hospital’s commander and the secretary of the Army.

The sad truth is that The Post’s reports weren’t entirely new: Mark Benjamin, of United Press International and the Web magazine Salon, and Steve Robinson, the director of veterans affairs at Veterans for America, have been reporting on the disgraceful treatment of our war wounded since 2003. More important, the Walter Reed scandal is simply the tip of the iceberg: President Bush, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Congress all pointedly failed to provide the money and resources for our returned troops wherever they are, both the obviously wounded and those who may seem healthy but are suffering mentally and physically from their service.

Soldiers have long joked: “If you are really sick or injured, Army medical care is O.K. But if you are hurting only a little, especially if it isn’t visible, you’re in big trouble.” The American soldier still receives the best trauma care in the world, especially at Walter Reed. The problem there has been with deplorable outpatient care management. The military health system is seriously undermanned and underfinanced for the number of casualties coming home. Also, there has been little preparation for identifying and treating post-traumatic stress injuries.

Last year, because of spending in Iraq, the Army had a $530 million shortfall in its budget for posts at home and abroad. This forced the Army’s vice chief of staff, Richard Cody, to tighten belts that were already at the last notch.

Hospitals have taken a big part of the financial hit. General Cody has warned Congress that failure to shore up the tottering military health care system could become a “retention issue.” David Chu, the Pentagon’s under secretary for personnel and readiness, told The Wall Street Journal that veterans’ costs “are taking away from the nation’s ability to defend itself.”

The result is that Walter Reed and every other domestic Army post have struggled to house soldiers properly after their release from the hospital. For the lucky ones, family members pick up the slack, making sure that follow-up care is provided, that prescription drug regimens are followed, that therapists show up for rehabilitation sessions. Those without family help tend to slip between the cracks.

Walter Reed, in particular, has another problem. The Base Realignment and Closure Commission decided in 2005 to shutter this critical hospital. I won’t debate that decision now — what’s done is done — but when the commission decides you will close within a few years, money dries up real fast. It is no wonder that buildings fell into disrepair and recovering soldiers slipped off the radar screen.

This was the fiscal environment that Maj. Gen. George Weightman stepped into last August when he took command of Walter Reed. I have known George since he was a plebe at West Point. He is bright, honorable and energetic — and always capable. But as another of his admirers told me, “He was the captain of that ship.” And now he has gone down with his ship — the victim of Mr. Rumsfeld’s wrongheaded cost-cutting and the joint chiefs’ failure to stand up to the civilian leadership.

So, what can we do to ensure that good men like General Weightman aren’t put in impossible situations and, more important, that our fighting men and women get the care they need? A good first step has been taken: Secretary of Defense Robert Gates fired the secretary of the Army, Francis Harvey, who was a true Rumsfeld man and viewed by many as more loyal to his boss than to the Army. But some other prescriptions seem obvious:

•

I would encourage every member of Congress, ever senior Pentagon official and every White House staff member to read the articles Mark Benjamin has written on soldier care, beginning with the 2003 report he did on Fort Stewart in Georgia. The train in this wreck left the station a long time ago.

•

The Pentagon must do something it has, amazingly, never tried: develop an official doctrine on how to “redeploy” a soldier from the combat zone to the peaceful zone. This means hiring mental health experts to thoroughly analyze the psychology of the returning soldier, and making a commitment to building a health care network that can meet the needs of a growing population of injured soldiers.

•

Congress must increase financing for research into traumatic brain injuries, the signature malady of this war. Unbelievably, in its Pentagon appropriations bill for 2007, Congress cut in half the financing for the Army’s main research and treatment program on brain injury (which, no surprise, is at Walter Reed).

•

The government should also expand grants to the Fisher House program, a public-private partnership that has “comfort homes” at every major military medical center. These provide families of wounded troops with housing, kitchens, laundry rooms and other support services. The program serves more than 8,500 families a year, but will struggle to keep pace with the growing number of returning wounded.

•

Like so many government departments, the military has a medical computer system that is made up of a hodgepodge of antiquated machines with outdated software that often can’t communicate with one another. This needs to be replaced with a user-friendly system that can efficiently track the wounded as they make their way through the system.

•

The Pentagon must revamp the Medical Evaluation Board process, the system under which a soldier suffering from injury is screened to see if he should be given a discharge and a disability pension. Cases now are handled in a haphazard way and can drag out indefinitely; each should be held to a disciplined timeline.

•

The general effort by Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Harvey to privatize services at Army bases needs to be reined in. Some of the problems at Walter Reed seem to have been caused by the contracting out of maintenance services and other support jobs.

•

While we address the needs of uniformed men and women, we need to assess our civilian employees as well; most are excellent, but some are entrenched and in need of firing.

•

The money to care for our soon-to-be-veteran soldiers should not come from the Defense Department budget. The immense costs of medical care are simply too attractive to Pentagon budget-cutters, creating a conflict of interest between the war effort and the health of our troops.

•

And, of course, we must move the outpatient soldiers out of Walter Reed immediately. It is a small, old installation with few recreational outlets in a neighborhood of Washington that is unwelcoming to patients’ families. Fort Lewis in Washington State, for example, is a large, well-equipped installation in a beautiful area with a good program for recovering soldiers. And the big goal should be to get our wounded troops off bases entirely and back their own homes, with adequate medical care and insurance.

The other day I had a phone conversation with Mr. Robinson, a former Army Ranger whose group aids Persian Gulf war veterans suffering with health disorders. “The problem with Walter Reed and the nation’s defense health program is much more than money, mold and mice,” he said. “It is about leadership.” He’s right. And with Secretary Gates, I expect the Joint Chiefs of Staff to be able to resume their rightful role in our nation’s defense

Paul D. Eaton is a retired Army major general.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/06/opinion/06eaton.html?hp

=================

For-profit medical care in the private sector sucks, because it's for-profit rather than for-care.

For-profit medical care by govt contractors is, like most contracting, is even worse, a grab for money and profits, not about delivering medical care.

[AFE7FATMAN]

“[b]The problem with Walter Reed and the nation’s defense health program is much more than money, mold and mice,” he said. “It is about leadership.” [/b
Paul D. Eaton is a retired Army major general.

For-profit medical care in the private sector sucks, because it's for-profit rather than for-care.

For-profit medical care by govt contractors is, like most contracting, is even worse, a grab for money and profits, not about delivering medical care.

^^^Agreed


Isn't America Great
All this fuss caused by an enlisted man's Mommy

Building 18 resident of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Army Spc. Jeremy Duncan was the one who blew the whistle on conditions at the center. His family is from Lesage.

The town is pronounced "Leese Age" and a little known fact is West "BY GOD"
Virginia had more vets die, per capita, than any other state during the VN War.

The Herald-Dispatch
By Bob Withers

HUNTINGTON -- The scandal over Walter Reed Army Medical Center's deplorable Building 18 has cost the secretary of the Army and the hospital commander their jobs. Congress and President Bush are investigating.

And it all started with a Huntington native.

Army Spc. Jeremy Duncan, 30, the only child of Cindy Yent of Lesage, was gravely injured when he was hit Feb. 6, 2006,

by two Improvised Explosive Devices -- one right after the other -- in Iraq.

He suffered a broken neck, two broken arms and several fractured fingers. His left cheek was crushed, requiring his mouth to be wired shut until a titanium replacement could be installed.

His left arm was ripped open from top to bottom, leaving a jagged scar from shoulder to wrist. He lost 98 percent of the vision in his left eye and some of his hearing. And when one of the blasts blew his helmet off his head, it took his left ear lobe with it. His face sustained flash burns, there were several concussions and lots of shrapnel in his head.

Duncan was treated on the spot by a medic, including inserting a hasty field tracheotomy -- a tube placed through a hole cut in his neck so he could breathe. Quickly, he was taken to a military medical unit just five miles away, then flown to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany and eventually transferred to Walter Reed.

He has been there a year now, and expects to stay another two month

"When he first arrived, there were only two places you could touch him," his mother says. "Family members had to stay with him around the clock for the first two weeks."

Yent believes the presence of a medic, the nearness of the field hospital and the fact that he was the only member of his unit wearing body armor saved his life.

"All we can do is pray," an Army chaplain in Germany had told her on the telephone.

Duncan says he lived in a "moldy" apartment on Building 18's second floor for six months last year.

His mother was more graphic.

"Wallpaper was falling down," she says. "There were roaches and mouse droppings. When you were in the shower, you could see the bottom of the bathtub in the apartment above his. Jeremy told me, 'Mom, don't come up here. I don't want you to see this place.' "

A mutual friend put Duncan in touch with Dana Priest, the Washington Post's military reporter. She interviewed him at a neutral location, and then he allowed her to take photographs of his apartment. :clap :clap

Duncan is gratified to see something finally being done about conditions at Walter Reed.

"I feel great about it," he says.

And, physically, he's feeling much better. He spends much of his time volunteering to counsel other recovering soldiers, since the Walter Reed staff is so overwhelmed with the continuous arrivals of wounded personnel from Iraq and Afghanistan.

"I'm feeling good," he says. "It's just another day."

.......

http://herald-dispatch.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070309/NEWS01/703090356/1001/NEWS10

[ChumpDumper]

The Bush administration simply didn't have the foresight to expect so many casualties since they thought the Iraqis would welcome us with open arms and the entire operation would be a cakewalk. Why anyone would be surprised by this is the real question.

[AFE7FATMAN]

The Bush administration simply didn't have the foresight to expect so many casualties since they thought the Iraqis would welcome us with open arms and the entire operation would be a cakewalk. Why anyone would be surprised by this is the real question.

CD
The Bush Administration didn't have any foresight on 99.99% of it's foreign
policy. Rummy, DIckhead, and that College Prof from Calif were all stuck
in a time warp from the cold war, with the recent memory of Desert Storm,which was a cake walk.

But how much to spend on Walter Reed? It's been targeted for closure by the BRAC. How much $$ was allocated after the closing announcement?

Just a question that might shed a little light on the subject of money.
the VA has been F'd for years, nothing will change untill they get about 40 bill
and a lot of new CEO Types.

Normally when your slated to close, you get squat for building maintenance,
based upon expericence at 5 different statins that were slated to close.

Why not speed up that process instead of sinking money into that antiquated campus. Ever been there? It's laid out awful for a hospital

as a side bar:
There are pictures in recent Washington Posts of the General Kileys Quarters. A picture shows that Bldg 18 is right across the street from the generals quarters.

An inspection would only require that they look out the window.

The mold in the showers and peeling paint can be seen from the general's living room windows. "Well reverse angle works that way :toast

let's be realistic here.


General Robert E Lee only gave his officers one chance to succeed in their assigned mission. once they failed him ; he never gave them another chance.
maybe that is why the South lost the war.

I give them 6 months, but I'm not betting any of my money or bookie cash things will change. :cry

[ChumpDumper]

I have no reason to doubt what you are saying if it is indeed slated for closure. I only think that sometime in the past five years someone in the administration could have figured out that maybe a couple more casualties made their way back to the states than originally expected in the halcyon days before "mission accomplished."

[BIG IRISH]

The string of firings is raising questions about just who is being held accountable as the nation prepares to enter its fifth year of the war in Iraq.

Sec pf the Army is gone, and the career of the Walter Reed commander he fired Thursday, Major General George Weightman, is all but over.

The temporary Walter Reed boss, Lieutenant General Kevin Kiley is likely to meet the same fate.
:clap :clap :clap :clap

Yet, as the war the Bush administration predicted would be a "cakewalk"
before it began has bogged down, not a single civilian boss or top military commander has taken a similar fall.
:dramaquee :pctoss


The contrast seems stark. Tommy Franks, the Army general who as chief of Central Command scuttled Anthony Zinni's more robust war plan ...
''''my comments
General Zinni' continues to be persona no grata at the Pentgon
I'd follow this man to Hell and Back.BTW the New Surge and strategy
were recommend by Gen Zinni before he was replaced by Gen Franks,
whio conducted a so called war from the Gulf Course in Fla.'''

and agreed with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that invasion-lite was the way to go, got the Presidential Medal of Freedom.


So did former CIA chief George ("Slam Dunk") Tenet

and L. Paul "Jerry" Bremer, who as Iraqi viceroy fired the entire Iraqi army,
:depressed , a move now widely seen as laying the groundwork for a sustained insurgency.

"Where is Jerry Working Now :p:

Franks' successor, John Abizaid, is by all accounts a fine Army officer, but one who spent years stressing the need for a "light footprint" inside Iraq that dragged out the death and dying on both sides. :madrun

He'll retire soon to praise and pension. And General George Casey, Abizaid's underling and overall commander inside Iraq for the past 30 months, has just won promotion to Army chief of staff. :drunk

That's why the firing of Weightman — who ran Walter Reed Army Medical Center for the past six months — seemed so out of line.

Harvey canned him 10 days after the Washington Post exposed the poor living conditions — and lassez-faire attitude from hospital staff — that many outpatients experienced.

Harvey replaced Weightman with Kiley, the commander of U.S. Medical Command, who had run Walter Reed from 2002 to 2004.

Late Friday, the Army announced that Major General Eric Schoomaker, an Army doctor and younger brother of the current Army chief of staff, would become Walter Reed's new commander.

:nope but on 2nd thought maybe

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1595473,00.html
with his family connections he can get the carpetbaggers of there ass
and get the Army to back him.

[AFE7FATMAN]

I have no reason to doubt what you are saying if it is indeed slated for closure. I only think that sometime in the past five years someone in the administration could have figured out that maybe a couple more casualties made their way back to the states than originally expected in the halcyon days before "mission accomplished."

This happen a year ago, guess the members of BRAC didn't give a sheet
about the wounded or even know about them.

Posted 8/25/2005 8:51 AM Updated 8/26/2005 9:17 AM

Walter Reed Army Medical Center selected to close
By Dave Moniz, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, where seriously wounded soldiers have received care since 1909, was recommended to close by the federal base closure commission. (Related story: Hospital's history turns a page)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-08-25-base-closing_x.htm
The administration of GWB or Congress couldn't/can't stop it.
If your in the "Administration" and want to stay there your not going to be the greek bearing the message.

If your in the Military and A Officer, your not going to endanger your Officer Performance Report,

If your in the Press, You have no idea of how many casualties, as you can't
get to see them, when they come back, except for Photo Ops at places
they spent the last 24 hrs spit- shinning.

and quite frankly
What else is new? This is how military men and retirees have been treated since the Revolution. This is not one man's fault, but a systemic action from the entire American public that military people are great in words but not worth a damn if it requires their $

They should be respected the most for what they have given us but are in fact treated with utter disrespect/though to be less than equal, see remarks by Obama, McCain, Kerry, etc.
This nation needs a new revolution to purge these greedy, incompetent politicians,& bureaucrats, however it's not going to happen.

Gotta go pick up the folks at the Mall :toast

[BIG IRISH]

The string of firings is raising questions about just who is being held accountable as the nation prepares to enter its fifth year of the war in Iraq.

Sec pf the Army is gone, and the career of the Walter Reed commander he fired Thursday, Major General George Weightman, is all but over.

The temporary Walter Reed boss, Lieutenant General Kevin Kiley is likely to meet the same fate.


:clap :clap :clap :clap


Army forces surgeon general to retire – 3rd major dismissal in Walter Reed controversy




By Pauline Jelinek
ASSOCIATED PRESS

2:21 p.m. March 12, 2007

WASHINGTON – Army Surgeon General Kevin C. Kiley abruptly stepped down under pressure from military superiors, the third top Army official forced out in the fallout from revelations of shabby treatment of wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
The Army said Monday that Lt. Gen. Kiley had submitted a request to retire over the weekend

:clap :clap :clap
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/military/20070312-1421-walterreed.html

However, Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said Kiley's firing alone won't solve the problem. “With the installation of new leaders, the real test will be making sure that the work fixing problems actually gets done,” he said.

“We've made a good start, but much remains to be done,”

[boutons_]

Kiley's peformance before Congress was unbelievably horrible.

His basic position was "As commander, I give commands, others execute commands" with the sub-text being "the buck stops with the commanded, not with the commander".

iow, "it wasn't my responsibility to provide out-patient care or monitor its quality."

Horrible mgmt practice (no feedback or controls or verification), and total asshole of an officer.

[BIG IRISH]

Kiley's peformance before Congress was unbelievably horrible.

His basic position was "As commander, I give commands, others execute commands" with the sub-text being "the buck stops with the commanded, not with the commander".

iow, "it wasn't my responsibility to provide out-patient care or monitor its quality."

Horrible mgmt practice (no feedback or controls or verification), and total asshole of an officer.
:reading
ty
Got a link for his performance before congress?
Maybe he could open a GYN clinic :lol

[PixelPusher]

All of this whining and complaining about Walter Reed...there's a war on dammit! All of that mold, rat turds and privatized outsource - um, I mean government bureacracy is just there to "battle harden" the troops so they'll be ready to get back into the fight.



The Army is ordering injured troops to go to Iraq (http://www.salon.com/news/2007/03/11/fort_benning/)

At Fort Benning, soldiers who were classified as medically unfit to fight are now being sent to war. Is this an isolated incident or a trend?

By Mark Benjamin

March 11, 2007 | COLUMBUS, Ga. -- "This is not right," said Master Sgt. Ronald Jenkins, who has been ordered to Iraq even though he has a spine problem that doctors say would be damaged further by heavy Army protective gear. "This whole thing is about taking care of soldiers," he said angrily. "If you are fit to fight you are fit to fight. If you are not fit to fight, then you are not fit to fight."

As the military scrambles to pour more soldiers into Iraq, a unit of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Benning, Ga., is deploying troops with serious injuries and other medical problems, including GIs who doctors have said are medically unfit for battle. Some are too injured to wear their body armor, according to medical records.

On Feb. 15, Master Sgt. Jenkins and 74 other soldiers with medical conditions from the 3rd Division's 3rd Brigade were summoned to a meeting with the division surgeon and brigade surgeon. These are the men responsible for handling each soldier's "physical profile," an Army document that lists for commanders an injured soldier's physical limitations because of medical problems -- from being unable to fire a weapon to the inability to move and dive in three-to-five-second increments to avoid enemy fire. Jenkins and other soldiers claim that the division and brigade surgeons summarily downgraded soldiers' profiles, without even a medical exam, in order to deploy them to Iraq. It is a claim division officials deny.

The 3,900-strong 3rd Brigade is now leaving for Iraq for a third time in a steady stream. In fact, some of the troops with medical conditions interviewed by Salon last week are already gone. Others are slated to fly out within a week, but are fighting against their chain of command, holding out hope that because of their ills they will ultimately not be forced to go. Jenkins, who is still in Georgia, thinks doctors are helping to send hurt soldiers like him to Iraq to make units going there appear to be at full strength. "This is about the numbers," he said flatly.

That is what worries Steve Robinson, director of veterans affairs at Veterans for America, who has long been concerned that the military was pressing injured troops into Iraq. "Did they send anybody down range that cannot wear a helmet, that cannot wear body armor?" Robinson asked rhetorically. "Well that is wrong. It is a war zone." Robinson thinks that the possibility that physical profiles may have been altered improperly has the makings of a scandal. "My concerns are that this needs serious investigation. You cannot just look at somebody and tell that they were fit," he said. "It smacks of an overstretched military that is in crisis mode to get people onto the battlefield."

Eight soldiers who were at the Feb. 15 meeting say they were summoned to the troop medical clinic at 6:30 in the morning and lined up to meet with division surgeon Lt. Col. George Appenzeller, who had arrived from Fort Stewart, Ga., and Capt. Aaron K. Starbuck, brigade surgeon at Fort Benning. The soldiers described having a cursory discussion of their profiles, with no physical exam or extensive review of medical files. They say Appenzeller and Starbuck seemed focused on downplaying their physical problems. "This guy was changing people's profiles left and right," said a captain who injured his back during his last tour in Iraq and was ordered to Iraq after the Feb. 15 review.

Appenzeller said the review of 75 soldiers with profiles was an effort to make sure they were as accurate as possible prior to deployment. "As the division surgeon and the senior medical officer in the division, I wanted to ensure that all the patients with profiles were fully evaluated with clear limitations that commanders could use to make the decision whether they could deploy, and if they did deploy, what their limitations would be while there," he said in a telephone interview from Fort Stewart. He said he changed less than one-third of those profiles -- even making some more restrictive -- in order to "bring them into accordance with regulations."

In direct contradiction to the account given by the soldiers, Appenzeller said physical examinations were conducted and that he had a robust medical team there working with him, which is how they managed to complete 75 reviews in one day. Appenzeller denied that the plan was to find more warm bodies for the surge into Baghdad, as did Col. Wayne W. Grigsby Jr., the brigade commander. Grigsby said he is under "no pressure" to find soldiers, regardless of health, to make his unit look fit. The health and welfare of his soldiers are a top priority, said Grigsby, because [the soldiers] are "our most important resource, perhaps the most important resource we have in this country."

Grigsby said he does not know how many injured soldiers are in his ranks. But he insisted that it is not unusual to deploy troops with physical limitations so long as he can place them in safe jobs when they get there. "They can be productive and safe in Iraq," Grigsby said.

The injured soldiers interviewed by Salon, however, expressed considerable worry about going to Iraq with physical deficits because it could endanger them or their fellow soldiers. Some were injured on previous combat tours. Some of their ills are painful conditions from training accidents or, among relatively older troops, degenerative problems like back injuries or blown-out knees. Some of the soldiers have been in the Army for decades.

And while Grigsby, the brigade commander, says he is under no pressure to find troops, it is hard to imagine there is not some desperation behind the decision to deploy some of the sick soldiers. Master Sgt. Jenkins, 42, has a degenerative spine problem and a long scar down the back of his neck where three of his vertebrae were fused during surgery. He takes a cornucopia of potent pain pills. His medical records say he is "at significantly increased risk of re-injury during deployment where he will be wearing Kevlar, body armor and traveling through rough terrain." Late last year, those medical records show, a doctor recommended that Jenkins be referred to an Army board that handles retirements when injuries are permanent and severe.

A copy of Jenkins' profile written after that Feb. 15 meeting and signed by Capt. Starbuck, the brigade surgeon, shows a healthier soldier than the profile of Jenkins written by another doctor just late last year, though Jenkins says his condition is unchanged. Other soldiers' documents show the same pattern.

One female soldier with psychiatric issues and a spine problem has been in the Army for nearly 20 years. "My [health] is deteriorating," she said over dinner at a restaurant near Fort Benning. "My spine is separating. I can't carry gear." Her medical records include the note "unable to deploy overseas." Her status was also reviewed on Feb. 15. And she has been ordered to Iraq this week.

The captain interviewed by Salon also requested anonymity because he fears retribution. He suffered a back injury during a previous deployment to Iraq as an infantry platoon leader. A Humvee accident "corkscrewed my spine," he explained. Like the female soldier, he is unable to wear his protective gear, and like her he too was ordered to Iraq after his meeting with the division surgeon and brigade surgeon on Feb. 15. He is still at Fort Benning and is fighting the decision to send him to Baghdad. "It is a numbers issue with this whole troop surge," he claimed. "They are just trying to get those numbers."

Another soldier contacted Salon by telephone last week expressed considerable anxiety, in a frightened tone, about deploying to Iraq in her current condition. (She also wanted to remain anonymous, fearing retribution.) An incident during training several years ago injured her back, forcing doctors to remove part of her fractured coccyx. She suffers from degenerative disk disease and has two ruptured disks and a bulging disk in her back. While she said she loves the Army and would like to deploy after back surgery, her current injuries would limit her ability to wear her full protective gear. She deployed to Iraq last week, the day after calling Salon.

Her husband, who has served three combat tours in the infantry in Afghanistan and Iraq, said he is worried sick because his wife's protective vest alone exceeds the maximum amount she is allowed to lift. "I have been over there three times. I know what it is like," he told me during lunch at a restaurant here. He predicted that by deploying people like his wife, the brigade leaders are "going to get somebody killed over there." He said there is "no way" Grigsby is going to keep all of the injured soldiers in safe jobs. "All of these people that deploy with these profiles, they are scared," he said. He railed at the command: "They are saying they don't care about your health. This is pathetic. It is bad."

His wife's physical profile was among those reevaluated on Feb. 15. A copy of her profile from late last year showed her health problems were so severe they "prevent deployment" and recommended she be medically retired from the Army. Her profile at that time showed she was unable to wear a protective mask and chemical defense equipment, and had limitations on doing pushups, walking, biking and swimming. It said she can only carry 15 pounds.

Though she says that her condition has not changed since then, almost all of those findings were reversed in a copy of her physical profile dated Feb. 15. The new profile says nothing about a medical retirement, but suggests that she limit wearing a helmet to "one hour at a time."

Spc. Lincoln Smith, meanwhile, developed sleep apnea after he returned from his first deployment to Iraq. The condition is so severe that he now suffers from narcolepsy because of a lack of sleep. He almost nodded off mid-conversation while talking to Salon as he sat in a T-shirt on a sofa in his girlfriend's apartment near Fort Benning.

Smith is trained by the Army to be a truck driver. But since he is in constant danger of falling asleep, military doctors have listed "No driving of military vehicles" on his physical profile. Smith was supposed to fly to Iraq March 9. But he told me on March 8 that he won't go. Nobody has retrained Smith to do anything else besides drive trucks. Plus, because of his condition he was unable to train properly with the unit when the brigade rehearsed for Iraq in January, so he does not feel ready.
Click Here!

Smith needs to sleep with a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine pumping air into his mouth and nose. "Otherwise," he says, "I could die." But based on his last tour, he is not convinced he will be able to be in places with constant electricity or will be able to fix or replace his CPAP machine should it fail.

He told me last week he would refuse to deploy to Iraq, unsure of what he will be asked to do there and afraid that he will not be taken care of. Since he won't be a truck driver, "I would be going basically as a number," says Smith, who is 32. "They don't have enough people," he says. But he is not going to be one of those numbers until they train him to do something else. "I'm going to go to the airport, and I'm going to tell them I'm not going to go. They are going to give me a weapon. I am going to say, 'It is not a good idea for you to give me a weapon right now.'"

The Pentagon was notified of the reclassification of the Fort Benning soldiers as soon as it happened, according to Master Sgt. Jenkins. He showed Salon an e-mail describing the situation that he says he sent to Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley. Jenkins agreed to speak to Salon because he hopes public attention will help other soldiers, particularly younger ones in a similar predicament. "I can't sit back and let this happen to me or other soldiers in my position." But he expects reprisals from the Army.

Other soldiers slated to leave for Iraq with injuries said they wonder whether the same thing is happening in other units in the Army. "You have to ask where else this might be happening and who is dictating it," one female soldier told me. "How high does it go?"

[velik_m]

I bet american soldiers would rather be in austrian prison (http://www.hohensinn-architektur.at/jz_leoben.html), than in american hospital. :p:

[BIG IRISH]

All of this whining and complaining about Walter Reed...there's a war on dammit! All of that mold, rat turds and privatized outsource - um, I mean government bureacracy is just there to "battle harden" the troops so they'll be ready to get back into the fight.


Nothing new here folks, just move along, People still trying to get out of fighting, General Patton wouldn't have put up with this.

[boutons_]

"People still trying to get out of fighting"

Like dubya and dickhead during VN war?

Like the millions of red-state kids who refuse to enlist and die for dubya?

The military is taking ex-cons now. Neo-cons won't go. :lol

[BIG IRISH]

"People still trying to get out of fighting"

Like dubya and dickhead during VN war?

Like the millions of red-state kids who refuse to enlist and die for dubya?

The military is taking ex-cons now. Neo-cons won't go. :lol


If they would let me go back on flight status, I'd go, jump my retired pay 2 1/2 %,
Tax Free, College Education, free medical,
:dizzy





check my avitar, the camera added a few years.
:drunk

[BIG IRISH]

On a more serious note as to what the Administration and congress think of the retiree:


Once again the Military Officers Association of America (MOAA) and other members of the Military Coalition are having to gear up to fight the Pentagon's attempts to triple annual TRICARE fees for military retirees younger than 65 in some cases because of the president's recently submitted budget.

What's most egregious is that the fiscal 2008 budget assumes even larger fee increases than last year.

MOAA and Military Coalition members said that these dramatic fee increases were not appropriate. Adding to the argument, the Department of Defense had not done enough to pursue other available options to keep health care costs down. Congress agreed.


This year, the Pentagon has not yet published a fee plan. It is waiting for findings from a Defense Department-appointed task force on the future of military health care. That task force is supposed to provide interim recommendations on cost sharing and pharmacy co-pays in May.

In essence, the administration has underfunded the Defense Department health care budget by presuming the task force's outcome.

Also, the administration has challenged Congress to either implement fee increases high enough to save $1.8 billion or find the same amount from another source to make up for the underfunding.

MOAA thinks it is wrong to play this kind of budget "chicken" with the Defense Department health care program.

It is especially shortsighted and disheartening to do so in a time of war.
Sincerely,

Ret. Vice Adm. Norb Ryan Jr.
President
Military Officers Association of America
Alexandria, Va.

[AFE7FATMAN]

Quit your bitching Irish
It won't be long till all the VN vets are dead and than the Democrats
can cut the military to the bone and give the $ to illegal immirgants
for college.


Mar 09, 2007
BY Spc. April L. Dustin

Retired Army Cpl. Howard V. Ramsey, Oregon's last living World War I veteran and the last known U.S. combat veteran of WWI, died in his sleep Feb. 22 at an assisted living center in southeast Portland.

PORTLAND, Ore. (Army News Service, March 9, 2007) - The echo of a 21-gun salute and bugler playing Taps seemingly marked the end of an era as a state and national treasure was laid to rest in Portland, Ore., March 2.

Retired Army Cpl. Howard V. Ramsey,the last living World War I veteran and the last known U.S. combat veteran of WWI, died in his sleep Feb. 22 at an assisted living center in southeast Portland. He was honored in a memorial service attended by nearly 200 people at Lincoln Memorial Park exactly one month before reaching his 109th birthday.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------



His conflict has never had the recognition it deserved.

With Civil war tactics meeting modern weaponry for the first time in such large numbers of troops, WW1 was truly a horror.

Many of these old timers that survived gas attacks had to soak in tubs whenever possible to give relief to skin damage 50 years after the event.

The medical community never caught up to the sheer volume of these gas cases, affecting eyes, lungs and skin.
RIP

[AFE7FATMAN]

P.S.

Talk about Vets that are dead and got screwed.

For those that are old enough to remember when
for years America's Military, and Vets were told
that agent Orange had no effect on them.

In 1985, while Sir Richard was a paid consultant for Monsanto, he stepped into the debate over the herbicides Agent Orange and dioxin, which had been sprayed from the air in the Vietnam war.

An Australian royal commission was investigating whether the herbicides, made by Monsanto, had caused cancers in Australian personnel involved in the war.

Sir Richard offered his unsolicited views in a letter to Justice Phillip Evatt, who headed the inquiry, and gave Agent Orange a clean bill of health.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1967386,00.html




http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,,1967381,00.html
Scientist's Payoff for Work on Agent Orange Is Black Mark on Reputation
The British epidemiologist Sir Richard Doll failed to disclose that he was in the pay of a chemical company for 20 years while he was investigating links between a company product and cancer, The Guardian reported today.

The company, Monsanto, was paying Sir Richard $1,500 a day, according to a contract found among his papers in the Wellcome Foundation library. That contract, dated April 29, 1986, extended an agreement that began in May 1979. While on Monsanto’s payroll, Sir Richard told an Australian commission that there was no evidence that one of Monsanto’s products, the defoliant known as Agent Orange, caused cancer, the British newspaper reported.

Agent Orange was widely used by American forces in the Vietnam War, and lawsuits against its manufacturer persisted for many years after the conflict ended.
Sir Richard, who died last year, was famous for his work in helping to demonstrate that smoking causes lung cancer.

If this so-called scientist had found that Agent Orange does cause the cancer that so many Vietnam vets and Vietnam people experienced after being exposed to it – then he would have some credibility.

However, to claim to scientifically examine the chemicals and find no correlation between cancer and Agent Orange, while at the same time receiving $1,500 a day ($547,500 annually) from the chemical company that makes Agent Orange – to me, this man is not only a paid prostitute but a mass murderer.

His bias and falsified findings have not only negatively effected hundreds of thousands of families, by denying them redress of their grievances, but he has also robbed them of their right to receive compensation for having been poisoned and/or killed by the policies of inhumane corporate profiteers in the chemical industry.

It is hard to imagine that people like this exist but here they are dressed in respectability and prestige – hiding in plain site behind educational and scientific institutions.
.....
....

From the Chronicle of Higher Education News Blog.
http://chronicle.com/news/article/1388/british-scientists-payoff-for-work-on-agent-orange-is-black-mark-on-reputation

:pctoss :ihit :bang :madrun