Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration At Army's Top Medical Facility

[Rose Siding]

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 wounded manage other wounded. Soldiers dealing with psychological disorders of their own have been put in charge of others at risk of suicide.
...
"We've done our duty. We fought the war. We came home wounded. Fine. But whoever the people are back here who are supposed to give us the easy transition should be doing it," said Marine Sgt. Ryan Groves, 26, an amputee who lived at Walter Reed for 16 months. "We don't know what to do. The people who are supposed to know don't have the answers. It's a nonstop process of stalling."

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

[fooj]

1. Hey Repubs...is this SUPPORTING the troops?

Assholes.

[Ouabache]

23. well of course it is as long as the yellow magnet is still on the car

the yellow magnet is the all important indicator of that, is it not?

[flamingyouth]

2. This is horrible.

But I suppose that goes without saying. :(

[kestrel91316]

3. Isn't it wonderful how the Bush administration Supports The Troops(TM)?

[Hekate]

4. Time to write our Congresscritters. Wonder if Murtha would like to drop by?

This warehousing has been the status quo from the beginning as regards National Guard troops. It just fits a pattern of all around neglect for all our wounded troops and vets. :cry:

:argh:

Hekate

[kestrel91316]

5. OF COURSE.

"....The wounded manage other wounded. Soldiers dealing with psychological disorders of their own have been put in charge of others at risk of suicide...."

What do these people expect??? Do they want us to RAISE TAXES to pay for better care?????? Nervy bunch, wanting the wealthy to make a few sacrifices, like less money to spend on fancy cars and duplicate homes in resorts around the world, and hired help in the home, and organic strawberries in January.

Bunch of f---ing ingrates. They should get down on their knees every day and thank God that we provide toilets and running water and bandages for their wounds. How dare they complain about their housing! Moldy sheetrock never hurt anybody.


:sarcasm:

Agent Mike, you need to make extra certain that Bushler never gets within arm's reach of me. My dad was career military, but he's not alive to be outraged over this, so I am gonna have to be outraged in his place.

[kestrel91316]

6. I have A QUESTION for the bible-thumping Support-the-Troops crowd:

WHERE THE FUCK IS YOUR CHRISTIAN CHARITY?????????

Get off your spoiled, lazy, hypocritical asses and care for these soldiers. Build them new housing!!!!! NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Lars39]

7. Contrast the conditions this vet is in with the article about Laura Bush

showing off the White House. :grr: :mad: :puke: :argh: :nuke:
These goddam frickin nazis have got to go.

[Rose Siding]

8. Read the whole thing. It's long, but it's just unbelievable-

snip>
Staff Sgt. John Daniel Shannon, 43, came in on one of those buses in November 2004 and spent several weeks on the fifth floor of Walter Reed's hospital. His eye and skull were shattered by an AK-47 round. His odyssey in the Other Walter Reed has lasted more than two years, but it began when someone handed him a map of the grounds and told him to find his room across post.

A reconnaissance and land-navigation expert, Shannon was so disoriented that he couldn't even find north. Holding the map, he stumbled around outside the hospital, sliding against walls and trying to keep himself upright, he said. He asked anyone he found for directions.

[Qanisqineq]

9. How typical of republicans

They are pro-life until the baby is born, then they don't care about it. They support the troops by supporting the war but don't care about giving them enough armor or taking care of them after they come back. It's all about money. Taking care of the baby after it is born and taking care of wounded soldiers both cost money and they just can't do that.

[bonito]

13. No smoke in your eyes

You got that right.

[UpInArms]

10. Center for war-related brain injuries faces budget cut

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-08-08-brain-center_x.htm

Posted 8/8/2006 10:01 PM ET
By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY
Congress appears ready to slash funding for the research and treatment of brain injuries caused by bomb blasts, an injury that military scientists describe as a signature wound of the Iraq war.

House and Senate versions of the 2007 Defense appropriation bill contain $7 million for the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center — half of what the center received last fiscal year.

Proponents of increased funding say they are shocked to see cuts in the treatment of bomb blast injuries in the midst of a war.

"I find it basically unpardonable that Congress is not going to provide funds to take care of our soldiers and sailors who put their lives on the line for their country," says Martin Foil, a member of the center's board of directors. "It blows my imagination."

The Brain Injury Center, devoted to treating and understanding war-related brain injuries, has received more money each year of the war — from $6.5 million in fiscal 2001 to $14 million last year. Spokespersons for the appropriations committees in both chambers say cuts were due to a tight budget this year.

"Honestly, they would have loved to have funded it, but there were just so many priorities," says Jenny Manley, spokeswoman for the Senate Appropriations Committee. "They didn't have any flexibility in such a tight fiscal year."

George Zitnay, co-founder of the center, testified before a Senate subcommittee in May that body armor saves troops caught in blasts but leaves many with brain damage. "Traumatic brain injury is the signature injury of the war on terrorism," he testified.

Zitnay asked for $19 million, and 34 Democratic and six Republican members of Congress signed a letter endorsing the budget request.

...more...

[UpInArms]

11. Bush Tax Cuts Offer Most for Very Rich, Study Finds

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/010807T.shtml

Monday 08 January 2007

Washington - Families earning more than $1 million a year saw their federal tax rates drop more sharply than any group in the country as a result of President Bush's tax cuts, according to a new Congressional study.

The study, by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, also shows that tax rates for middle-income earners edged up in 2004, the most recent year for which data was available, while rates for people at the very top continued to decline.

Based on an exhaustive analysis of tax records and census data, the study reinforced the sense that while Mr. Bush's tax cuts reduced rates for people at every income level, they offered the biggest benefits by far to people at the very top - especially the top 1 percent of income earners.

Though tax cuts for the rich were bigger than those for other groups, the wealthiest families paid a bigger share of total taxes. That is because their incomes have climbed far more rapidly, and the gap between rich and poor has widened in the last several years.

The study offers ammunition to supporters and opponents of Mr. Bush's tax cuts, which are all but certain to touch off a battle between the president and the Democrats who just took control of Congress.

Democratic leaders have taken pains to avoid an immediate fight over the tax cuts, most of which are scheduled to expire at the end of 2010. But Democrats are looking for ways to increase revenue well before then, in part because they want to spend more on education and energy without increasing the deficit.

Economists and tax analysts have long known that the biggest dollar value of Mr. Bush's tax cuts goes to people at the very top income levels. One reason is that two of his signature measures, tax cuts on investment income and a steady reduction of estate taxes, overwhelmingly benefit the wealthiest households.

...more...

[rodeodance]

15. we see very little of the brain injured in any news! VERY little

[ninkasi]

12. And because we want to get them out of this hell

WE are the ones WE don't support the troops? The Wingnuts give me such a feeling of revulsion, I can't even describe it. Damn them all to the hell they have created for others.

[rodeodance]

14. I am sending this article to all my congresscritters via post mail with

a little memo!

[gulfcoastliberal]

16. I remember a proposal last year to closee W. Reed.

Don't remember all details but it involved the more modern Navy hospital. Those conditions aren't fit for living in.

[Rose Siding]

20. That's still on -by 2011

snip>
The Pentagon has announced plans to close Walter Reed by 2011, but that hasn't stopped the flow of casualties. Three times a week, school buses painted white and fitted with stretchers and blackened windows stream down Georgia Avenue. Sirens blaring, they deliver soldiers groggy from a pain-relief cocktail at the end of their long trip from Iraq via Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany and Andrews Air Force Base.

[rodeodance]

17. Page A01 Nice to see it on the front page.

By Dana Priest and Anne Hull
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, February 18, 2007; Page A01

...........

[rodeodance]

18. above the fold (print ed.):

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/print/asectionfrontimage.html

[RamboLiberal]

19. Chimpy and all the other damn Repukes need to stop at Bldg 18

In fact I wish someone would lock them in there for the night. Damn, you'd think the scense you saw in "Born of the Fourth of July" were over - but it isn't. There's so damn much in this story including the fact that they are keeping these guys and girls on the military roll because of the failure of an all volunteer army. And I'm outraged they can't find Spanish translators for the Hispanic families, so well put that they can find recruiters who speak Spanish. Maybe it's time to take these recruiters off that beat and put them at Walter Reed to see what they have wrought!

[DainBramaged]

21. This needs to stay at the top of the forum everyday

And when one of the fucking Reich-wingers says we aren't patriots, ask them why they left the wounded without proper care. Fucking scum, they had FOUR YEARS and all they are are puppet scum chickenhawks.

[Sacajawea]

22. Kick...because this is so very, very important!

[RamboLiberal]

24. WP Mon: The Hotel Aftermath

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/18/AR2007021801335.html

<snip>

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>

Those who aren't old enough to buy a drink at the bar huddle outside near a magnolia tree and smoke cigarettes. Wearing hoodies and furry bedroom slippers, they look like kids at summer camp who've crept out of their rooms, except some have empty pants legs or limbs pinned by medieval-looking hardware. Medication is a favorite topic.

"Dude, Paxil saved my life."

"I been on methadone for a year, I'm tryin' to get off it."

"I didn't take my Seroquel last night and I had nightmares of charred bodies, burned crispy like campfire marshmallows."

[Rose Siding]

26. Oh, the shame

snip>
Dell McLeod's injury was utterly banal. He was in his 10th month of deployment with the 178th Field Artillery Regiment of the South Carolina National Guard near the Iraqi border when he was smashed in the head by a steel cargo door of an 18-wheeler. The hinges of the door had been tied together with a plastic hamburger-bun bag. Dell was knocked out cold and cracked several vertebrae......Army doctors are disputing that Dell's head injury was the cause of his mental impairment. One report says that he was slow in high school and that his cognitive problems could be linked to his native intelligence rather than to his injury.
...
When Dell sees his medical records, he explodes. "Special ed is for the mentally retarded, and I'm not mentally retarded, right, babe?" he asks Annette. "I graduated from high school. I did some college. I worked in a steel mill."
...
Dell and Annette's closest friend at Mologne House is a 47-year-old Guard member who was driving an Army vehicle through the Iraqi night when a flash of light blinded him and he crashed into a ditch with an eight-foot drop. Among his many injuries was a broken foot that didn't heal properly. Army doctors decided that "late life atrophy" was responsible for the foot, not the truck wreck in Iraq.


:(

[BlueIris]

25. My heart re-breaks for the military daily.

Jesus Christ.

[Up2Late]

27. This is so typical. Back in 2003, NPR found this same sort of thing going on at a base...

...in North Carolina, I think, so they cleaned that situation up and, most likely, just moved it to this Building 18. :mad:

This is shameful.