On KO: "Forgotten Warriors." Walter Reed treats returning war vets like

[muntrv]

crap. Rodent infested facilities? Bushies never support the troops.

:wtf:

[babylonsister]

1. Here are the stories from WaPo that started this ball rolling:

Here are links to the 2 part series:

Below are excepts and links to the 2 part Washington Post series on Iraqi veterans and their healthcare/rehabilitation at Walter Reed Hospital. It is disgraceful and sickening. I know a portion of the Sunday report was posted on DU Sunday. Here are both days' excellent reporting. Please read some of the reader comments to the articles, if you can.

PART 1, FROM SUNDAY

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20 ...

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


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.

They suffer from brain injuries, severed arms and legs, organ and back damage, and various degrees of post-traumatic stress. Their legions have grown so exponentially -- they outnumber hospital patients at Walter Reed 17 to 1 -- that they take up every available bed on post and spill into dozens of nearby hotels and apartments leased by the Army. The average stay is 10 months, but some have been stuck there for as long as two years.

Not all of the quarters are as bleak as Duncan's, but the despair of Building 18 symbolizes a larger problem in Walter Reed's treatment of the wounded, according to dozens of soldiers, family members, veterans aid groups, and current and former Walter Reed staff members interviewed by two Washington Post reporters, who spent more than four months visiting the outpatient world without the knowledge or permission of Walter Reed officials. Many agreed to be quoted by name; others said they feared Army retribution if they complained publicly.

-snip-

**************
PART 2, MONDAY

THE OTHER WALTER REED
The Hotel Aftermath
Inside Mologne House, the Survivors of War Wrestle With Military Bureaucracy and Personal Demons
By Anne Hull and Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, February 19, 2007; Page A01


The guests of Mologne House have been blown up, shot, crushed and shaken, and now their convalescence takes place among the chandeliers and wingback chairs of the 200-room hotel on the grounds of Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

-snip-

Mostly what the soldiers do together is wait: for appointments, evaluations, signatures and lost paperwork to be found. It's like another wife told Annette McLeod: "If Iraq don't kill you, Walter Reed will."

After Iraq, a New Struggle

The conflict in Iraq has hatched a virtual town of desperation and dysfunction, clinging to the pilings of Walter Reed. The wounded are socked away for months and years in random buildings and barracks in and around this military post.

The luckiest stay at Mologne House, a four-story hotel on a grassy slope behind the hospital. Mologne House opened 10 years ago as a short-term lodging facility for military personnel, retirees and their family members. Then came Sept. 11 and five years of sustained warfare. Now, the silver walkers of retired generals convalescing from hip surgery have been replaced by prosthetics propped against Xbox games and Jessica Simpson posters smiling down on brain-rattled grunts.

-snip-

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20 ...

[classof56]

7. Good God...I feel sick!

Words fail me...

Tired Old Cynic

[PADemD]

22. Neither link worked

[babylonsister]

26. Sorry. Try this for the first story that appeared Sunday:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/17/AR2007021701172.html

[babylonsister]

31. Here's a link to the second story:

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=9233

[Monkeyman]

2. Go to the Veterans Site read a report from vets who went to Reed to check it out

[MadMaddie]

6. Hey MonkeyMan it's a disgrace isn't it?

This administration never expected the number of wounded soldiers wounded to come back alive.....

This should be a crime.

[Monkeyman]

14. You Guys don't know the half of what's going on

Here is just one thing found out today by vets. Major in the nurse corps told them a story that send chills up my back. In the Glen the oldest part of Reed a wounded trooper yelled out. She ran in to see what the hell was going on. On this kids wounded foot a rat eating at the bandages. No More Rat but for good sakes what the hell.

[MadMaddie]

19. I am stunned....in America...this is happening....

Cities dying in the Gulf Coast, our wounded soldiers suffering long after returning to America....

When is this nightmare going to end? When will we get our country back. Will this country dare to stop dead in it's tracks and force this administration out? And hold them accountable?

[saigon68]

16. just like Nam-- the repukes don't support the wounded--they just wish they would die

Or just go away.

[Monkeyman]

20. Ya but Reed was never this bad

[saigon68]

25. I don't know

I do know that Bobby Mueller(my personal hero) said the VA in Brooklyn had rats running up and down the corridors



Bobby at last years Land mine conference


Bobby Mueller went on to say:

With all due respect to Chris Matthews who spoke to us just a minute ago - the mass media in this country is into entertainment, it is into celebrity worship and the American people are not getting the facts.

We are looking at a storm that is coming our way. I predict that there will be civil disorder in Saudi Arabia within one year. President Musharraf of Pakistan has had so many assassination attempts they aren't even reported in the newspaper as news anymore. Musharraf's beating heart is all that stands between us and 30 Muslim nuclear warheads because many Pakistani people support the militants.

When Saudi Arabia starts to break down or when Pakistan starts to break down, then there will be a draft in this country again. Last time we had a draft, the majority got a pass. That ain't going to happen again. It's not going to be an invitation. We are going to tool up for war - and that will be the "teachable moment."

No retreat, No surrender.

[Monkeyman]

27. I post on Veterans For America too with the Major

He is right about New York big time.

[Mojorabbit]

30. I think he is exactly right about Pakistan and SA

and I am dreading when that happens.

[PDJane]

3. it's just more noise.......

Support the Troops doesn't mean a damn thing, it's just propaganda. Sounds good, means nothing.....and while they're talking about everyone supporting the troops, they're asking for signing bonuses back and refusing to give the vets health and mental care and taking away death benefits for grandparents supporting their grandchildren after mom or dad or both die in Iraq.

God, I despise these people.

[WinkyDink]

4. I hate them, also. Hypocritical and EVIL.

[bdamomma]

5. this is a disgrace this stinking regime we have proven again

they do not give a shit about these troops coming home. They put them out there for the slaughter and sing them praises but they are nothing but empty slogans. Really disgusting how these people who fought W's war are being taken care of.

[oldtimecanuk]

8. Come on you guys, you should know that these returning war...

wounded are just Canon Fatter for the Administration... If it was up to the Bush Administration, now of these people would even survive. I can just hear the bitching in the White House about the fact that the Damn medical services in the field is just too good, we have to get rid of them..... This is serious :sarcasm: but is probably more true than any of us really know.

ww

[silverweb]

9. Randi featured this today, also.

There is NO EXCUSE for any of what's happening to our veterans and I'm glad to see these stories getting legs -- one more scathing indictment of this evil maladministration in particular, and the reTHUGs and neocons in general.

[Gabi Hayes]

11. I could only listen for a few minutes:

it was so very sad

but in this criminal/corporate/fascist adminstration, they WANT these guys to die, because it's better for the bottom line. MUCH cheaper to pay the death benefit than the long term medical/disability costs

they're just commas, remember?

[silverweb]

32. Just commas. How could I forget?

This maladministration calls those of us who want to bring our troops home "traitors."

But they betray them by wasting (yes, wasting!) their lives in this illegal war of conquest and profiteering, while continuing to abuse them both in the field and when they come home broken.

There is no forgiveness for the evil bastards who hold our nation hostage to their own profit.

:grr:

[Solly Mack]

10. People who support the troops don't deploy them for a "war" of lies

Point being...the neglect/lack of support started from the word go.

[bananarepublican]

33. ... and then try and 'bury' the wounded! Why do Republic*nts rule? n/t

[shoopnyc]

12. LOVING JON SOLZ...

chairman of votevets.org....he was a wonderful guest articulate and well spoken

[oldtimecanuk]

13. I realize that the URL I am about to post here should not be necessary...

but due to the A... Holes running our operations in both the WH and the Military it is... If anyone wishes to support our injured troops returning from Iraq....... Please go here....

http://www.fisherhouse.org/

ww

[oldtimecanuk]

15. OK Folks I want to ask a serious question here......

What can be done to really, really assist the BS that is going on in the World, (cause primarily by The Bush Administration)... Is there anything that we can do? The next thing that I see is hitting the streets with a serious Civil war happening in this country.. One of the largest problems facing us, is making the bulk of citizens aware of what is really going on in this country.... How do we get beyond this? There has to be something that can be done?

ww

[YvonneCa]

17. Go here...

... http://www.setadeadline.com/ and to VoteVets.org and take action.:patriot:

[Monkeyman]

18. Well Before Brother Randy Barnes Died he wanted to hit the streets

Like we did in the 60's but I don't see the anger we had back then.

[oldtimecanuk]

21. The reason we don't have the anger is due to MSM ... They are...

being disingenuous to the American people, and in their defense do not know what is really going on in the world. Even guys like Pat Buchanan is aware that we have a major problem in the WH and the Admin.

ww

[w8liftinglady]

24. not showing the severely wounded and caskets...the babyfaced heroes

that's why we aren't more outraged

[Monkeyman]

28. If this Story get the play it needs the outrage will show

[babylonsister]

29. If they chose to, the media whores could find out 'what is really going

on in the world.' They could read DU, for starters, or listen to any number of people in the field, or Iraqis, or soldiers, if it's too dangerous to send their own. That's a lame excuse; I attribute it to their corporate masters and their lazy asses.

[magellan]

23. This is the question I keep asking myself

What can we do? Many people don't have the time to make heads or tails of what's true and what isn't. They've been failed by their representatives and the corporate media. Right now I'd guesstimate by the anger level out there that the average American is running about a year behind what we know NOW. We can all talk to others about this stuff, but that will never have the same effect as having a functioning press.

I fear it's going to come to "the straw that breaks the camel's back". Americans are going to learn something or something will happen that will have them on the streets. And from there it gets pretty dicey.

This appears to be what BushCo are trying to stay ahead of, and why so many of us on DU are pressing for impeachment NOW. Only those highly publicized investigations will bring the nation up to speed on what these thugs have really been doing (and not doing) for six years.

Christ, we owe our soldiers and Marines at least that much, don't we?