http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article
/2007/02/17/AR2007021701172.html
Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration At Army’s Top Medical Facility
By Dana Priest and Anne Hull
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, February 18, 2007; Page A01
Five and a half years of sustained combat have transformed the venerable 113-acre Walter Reed Army Medical Center into a holding ground for physically and psychologically damaged outpatients.
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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.
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This is inexcusable. And, people think the gooferment “cares”! It cares about itself. Not it’s “castaways”. I’d house the President here for the remainder of his term. And, I’d put the next one there to! Think it’d get fixed? If it didn’t then I’d really wonder what the gooferment could do about anything,
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Here’s my note on Newsvine. Please highlight the story by voting it up.
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Maybe the story can get some action if it gets some traction. I’m sure the politicians of both ilks will just wish it away. No votes to be had solving it. No big campaign contributions from these vets or their families. No good can come out of it for them. Maybe it can be voted up into the conscience of America. It we still have one?
Reinke Faces Life 