Posted on 02/17/2007 8:05:58 PM PST by bnelson44
Behind the door of Army Spec. Jeremy Duncan's room, part of the wall is torn and hangs in the air, weighted down with black mold. When the wounded combat engineer stands in his shower and looks up, he can see the bathtub on the floor above through a rotted hole. The entire building, constructed between the world wars, often smells like greasy carry-out. Signs of neglect are everywhere: mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses.
This is the world of Building 18, not the kind of place where Duncan expected to recover when he was evacuated to Walter Reed Army Medical Center from Iraq last February with a broken neck and a shredded left ear, nearly dead from blood loss. But the old lodge, just outside the gates of the hospital and five miles up the road from the White House, has housed hundreds of maimed soldiers recuperating from injuries suffered in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The common perception of Walter Reed is of a surgical hospital that shines as the crown jewel of military medicine. But 5 1/2 years of sustained combat have transformed the venerable 113-acre institution into something else entirely -- a holding ground for physically and psychologically damaged outpatients. Almost 700 of them -- the majority soldiers, with some Marines -- have been released from hospital beds but still need treatment or are awaiting bureaucratic decisions before being discharged or returned to active duty.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Consider the source of the information.
Nice hit piece..
I do not trust any information coming from Dana Priest.
They have video at the link. I suppose some DC FReepers could drive down and look the place over.
I use the VA hospital in Biloxi, Mississippi. It was severely damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Today it is expanding and in excellent condition. This article is BS!!
I remember waking up in a tent … glad I was able to see anything. Never complained about the accommodations, just glad to be alive (VN).
Heads up ping. How about a work party to do a Jimmah Carter Habitat for Soldiers repair?
This might be one reason there is army also at the Naval Medical Center here in San Diego. This hospital is state of the art.
Considering who wrote it, I can't bring myself to click on the link.
I am torn between feeling that I would be supporting a real POS by clicking on it, and on the other hand, feeling like Howard Hughes trying to leave a bathroom without having any paper towels available in order to avoid touching the doorknob. I would have to clean my computer after visiting that site.
In reality they are closing soon Walter Reed
This has been in the news for some time.
Right...to be honest, having spent a great deal of my life in and around military facilities, I know how literally ratty they can be.
It looks like Washington Post reporters have done it again. They went into Walter Reed with the agenda to make Walter Reed look bad, and they only recorded people and incidents that would support their agenda. Of course, Walter Reed is not perfect, nothing is. But for reporters to only focus on the negative and ignore the positive is so typical of our MSM during this WOT.
This is nothing new. General William Tecumseh Sherman once said, "I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are. If I killed them all there would be news from Hell before breakfast."
This is intended to provide support for Murtha's forthcoming propaganda campaign.
IF the building is in such disrepair, we are to accept it has only gotten that way since Bush has been in office?
Haven't the Dems been bragging about all the do for Vets? Did Clinton ever propose upgrades over 8 years?
The Dems controlled Congress for 40 years, what did they do for it?
Sensationalsim at its height to demonize Republicans another time. Sadly, sheeple fall for it.
Or didn't your socialist mindset prevent you from considering anyone but HillaryCare from solving their problems.
If it's as depressing a place as you say and if liberals are as compassionate as they claim, where's Jimmuah Carter and his hammer when Bldg 18 could use them?
LOL, GMTA!!!
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