Reply With Quote
I'm sure Insight Magazine was all ready with an expose of their own, they just didn't want to embolden the enemy.
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 do ented 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."
....
==============
head would much prefer that the Army bomb the NYT and WP.
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.
Just so we're all clear on what a government run hospital is like.
"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 dumb sheeple/rabble so through that Repug scam and rejected it en masse.
Link please.
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.
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
You mean privatize a percentage of a percentage of Social Security?
Scare tactics
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?
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?
Just so were clear on what happens when an administration that has contempt for government services (everything lumped together in the derogatory term "en lement") 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?
Also, I don't believe I have heard ANYBODY, sans you, compare veteran's hospital treatment and rehabilitation with government "en lement" 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.
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.
There's a wonderfully concise do ent that spells out the federal government's limited role, if only they'd stick to it.
It's called the U. S. Cons ution.
Using taxpayer dollars to care for wounded soldiers is inherently un-cons utional. Got it.
I didn't say that.Using taxpayer dollars to care for wounded soldiers is inherently un-cons utional. Got it.
I will say that using taxpayers' dollars to care for illegal aliens is inherently uncons utional. Let's redirect those funds.
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwash...y/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 ins utional 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.
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 the individuals, It's The American Way.
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 roaches.
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.
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
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
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/
Last edited by BIG IRISH; 03-01-2007 at 02:28 AM.
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 Cons ution. 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.
In Summary
Promises to Keep
By John Cory
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022207J.shtml
What the 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 , huh?
? No. is a dark room shared with rats and roaches while praying someone will come by and roll you over so you don't keep getting bedsores. is counting the flakes of peeling paint on the wall just to kill time, to take your mind off the pain. 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. , 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."
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"?
Last edited by AFE7FATMAN; 03-01-2007 at 04:14 AM.
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 roaches.
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.
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Red-staters probably don't read newspapers (has Fox carried this story?), but this story is a huge anti-recruitment poster.
Last edited by boutons_; 03-01-2007 at 12:19 PM.
Never trust someone who misspells . Taint right....
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