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In adapted buses from the 1960s, injured soldiers - sometimes as many as 30 or 40 - are after "wheels down" at a nearby US airbase. They were airlifted out of Afghanistan overnight - in some cases, just hours after they were injured. The first person to meet them is always one of the hospital Chaplains. After initial stabilisation on the ground in Afghanistan, Landstuhl will provide the next critical stage of their treatment. "In the case of battle injured we'll get some very, very recent casualties who've been stabilised enough to move the five or six-hour flight down range...

When I heard Barack Obama had planned a trip to visit Landstuhl Military Hospital in Germany, I knew from personal experience how much of a lift it would have given the hundreds of soldiers recovering from war wounds there. As fate would have it, I was sent to Landstuhl two years ago, after my lower legs were shattered by shrapnel from a mortar round in Iraq. After undergoing surgery, I spent nearly a month as a bedridden patient in the recovery care unit, uncertain whether or not I would ever walk again. It was around July 4th and I was...

Barack Obama's claims that he was not going to use a planned visit to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center as a photo-op were blown out of the water tonight by a spokesman for Landstuhl who told Stars and Stripes that plans had been made for Obama's campaign press contingent to film the candidate as he entered and left the hospital.U.S. European Command spokesman Lt. Col. John Dorrian said that local and traveling press would have been brought to the entrance of Landstuhl to film Obama entering and leaving the hospital.The article also noted that it would have been permissible for Obama...

Today, Dr. Danny Jazarevic, who served as the Chief of Trauma, Critical Care and Vascular Surgery at Landstuhl, issued the following statement on Barack Obama's canceled visit to Ramstein and Landstuhl: "Last week, Senator Obama skipped a visit with wounded U.S. troops at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany because the Pentagon would not allow campaign staff or media to accompany him into the hospital. I served as director of trauma surgery at that hospital for nearly four years and saw the effect that a visit from a celebrity like Senator Obama could have on morale. During that time, I...

Go see all the posts, below, about the BO visit, because you're about to get an education into HOW these visits happen, who is involved, and why they can get crazy. And, in a small way, a de-bunking of sorts on the Landestuhl visit from the perspective of someone who set those types of visits up. Many of you may recall that in a previous deployment, I had responsibility for all visits in theater. I was responsible for setting up ALL clearances for ANY visits to the area by ANYONE below cabinet level. That meant if your visit didn't get...

At a morning press conference after a meeting with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in London, Barack Obama got caught up in the web of lies his campaign has spun about the cancellation of his planned visit to wounded troops at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany on Friday.Obama stated: "We had scheduled to go, we had no problem at all in leaving, we always leave press and staff off -- that is why we left it off the schedule."Not true, Washington Post reported this morning: When Obama arrived in Germany on Thursday, a printed schedule said he would fly...

Only two facts matter in this little episode. First, Obama is a sitting U.S. Senator and can visit the troops any time he wants. Second, the only restriction on visiting the troops was that he could not bring reporters. Most importantly, it makes no difference what you call the trip. "Senator Obama had hoped to and had every intention of visiting our troops to express his appreciation and gratitude for their service to our country," retired Air Force Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration, an Obama adviser, said in a statement. "We learned from the Pentagon [Wednesday] night that the visit...

From NBC's Jim Miklaszewski In his official capacity as a sitting US senator, Obama has every right to stay in touch with America's men and women in uniform. According to Pentagon officials, the problem was that Obama's request to visit Landstuhl included two members of his campaign staff -- retired Major General Jonathan S. Gration and Jeff Kiernan. US military officials in Germany informed the campaign the two political operatives would not be permitted on base. Pentagon officials say Gration was the campaign's point of contact at Landstuhl in arranging Obama's visit and "got torqued" when he was told he...

A U.S. military official tells NBC News they were making preparations for Sen. Barack Obama to visit wounded troops at the Landstuhl Medical Center at Ramstein, Germany on Friday, but "for some reason the visit was called off." One military official who was working on the Obama visit said because political candidates are prohibited from using military installations as campaign backdrops, Obama's representatives were told, "he could only bring two or three of his Senate staff member, no campaign officials or workers." In addition, "Obama could not bring any media. Only military photographers would be permitted to record Obama's visit."...

Obama’s behavior toward American troops in Germany was so egregious, even the New York Times this morning is picking up the story. The Times writes, “It wasn’t perfectly clear whether the Pentagon asked the Obama campaign to cancel the trip outright or the campaign decided on its own -- after quiet pressure from military officials -- that a political trip to the base was inappropriate.” “The trip” was a scheduled trip to visit American troops at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, one of the world’s largest military hospitals. Initially, Obama claimed it would be inappropriate because he was in...

Robert Gibbs, a senior communications adviser to the Obama campaign, briefed reporters on the planne today. I just received this transcript as I am in London, having leap-frogged ahead due to requirements for live shots here. This is the full transcript about the Obama camp’s perspective on the back-and-forth with the Pentagon about the canceled visit to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. {Read Transcript at the Link)

Was the Pentagon's exclusion of Obama foreign policy advisor Maj. Gen. Scott Gration, USAF (Ret.) from Barack Obama's planned visit with wounded troops at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany the reason for Obama's cancellation of the visit?Piecing together the information being reported in various news outlets points in that direction.Der Spiegel first reported the story in a brief note on their live thread on Obama's visit to Berlin yesterday morning (EDT). Free Republic was the first to pick up the story. From there it was picked up by Hot Air, then spread through the blogosphere and into the the...

Barack Obama's presidential campaign has been rocked over the bad publicity Obama is getting over his perceived snub of wounded troops at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany.ABC News reports Obama staffers staged three separate briefings in just forty-five minutes on O-Force One as they flew from Berlin to Paris today.Yesterday, the Obama campaign put out two conflicting reasons for canceling the visit. One blamed the Pentagon, the other said Obama chose not to visit over concerns the stop would be seen as political.The Pentagon has responded to reporters queries saying that Obama was welcome to visit as a senator...

NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski and Courtney Kube get the skinny on the abrupt cancellation of Barack Obama’s visit to Landstuhl and Ramstein yesterday. The campaign tried to excuse it by claiming that it wouldn’t be appropriate to visit while on a campaign-funded portion of his trip, but that wasn’t the real problem. When Obama found out he couldn’t use the visit as a photo op, he canceled: One military official who was working on the Obama visit said because political candidates are prohibited from using military installations as campaign backdrops, Obama’s representatives were told, “he could only bring two or three...

NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski and Courtney Kube get the skinny on the abrupt cancellation of Barack Obama’s visit to Landstuhl and Ramstein yesterday. The campaign tried to excuse it by claiming that it wouldn’t be appropriate to visit while on a campaign-funded portion of his trip, but that wasn’t the real problem. When Obama found out he couldn’t use the visit as a photo op, he canceled... In fact, those same rules applied for the CODEL trip to Iraq and Afghanistan. They serve to keep politicians from exploiting military facilities for political reasons, and to ensure that all visitors get treated...

The Pentagon said Barack Obama phoned wounded U.S. soldiers at Landstuhl Regional Medical center in Germany today a day after a firestorm developed over his cancellation of plans to visit the base and Ramstein Air Force Base.Pentagon spokeswoman Elizabeth Hibner told Bloomberg News that Obama was told by the military he could visit the bases as an offical but not as a candidate and without campaign staff.Obama chose to cancel the visit and instead phoned it in to the troops.

The McCain campaign is slamming Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., over a decision to cancel a visit with U.S. troops in Germany. The German magazine Der Spiegel is reporting online that Obama has “cancelled a planned short visit to the Rammstein and Landstuhl U.S. military bases in the southwest German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. The visits were planned for Friday.” “Barack Obama will not be coming to us,” a spokesperson for the U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl told Der Spiegel. “I don't know why.” Obama senior adviser Robert Gibbs told ABC News in a statement, “During his trip as part of the...

NewsBusters has learned that presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Barack Obama has cancelled plans to visit two U.S. military bases while in Germany, this despite having all kinds of time to speak to gushing Berliners as well as getting in a workout at the Ritz Carlton.One of the bases, The Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, "is an overseas military hospital operated by the U.S. Army and the Department of Defense...[that] serves as the nearest treatment center for wounded soldiers coming from Iraq and Afghanistan."Yet, as Ed Morrissey's Hot Air reported a few hours ago, Spiegel Online claimed at 1:42 PM local time...

The Obama campaign has issued a new statement blaming the Pentagon for Obama's controversial decision to scrap visits to U.S. troops and Rammstein Landstuhl military bases in Germany on Friday.Der Spiegel initially reported this morning that Obama had cancelled the visits without reason. Then as word spread through the political world after the story was first posted at Free Republic, Obama's campaign issued a statement saying Obama thought it would be "inappropriate" to visit the troops while on a campaign trip.After the McCain campaign issued a statement upbraiding Obama for snubbing the troops saying that it is never inappropriate to...

++ Visit to US Military Bases Cancelled ++ 1:42 p.m.: SPIEGEL ONLINE has learned that Obama has cancelled a planned short visit to the Rammstein and Landstuhl US military bases in the southwest German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. The visits were planned for Friday. "Barack Obama will not be coming to us," a spokesperson for the US military hospital in Landstuhl announced. "I don't know why." Shortly before the same spokeswoman had announced a planned visit by Obama.