Building 18--- A WAPO story about inured Vets, Walter Reed, and a shameful bureaucracy!

[trumad]

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

[yellerpup]

1. We need to fight for the wounded soldiers

with commitment. Where does B**Co get off asking these troops to sacrifice everything then treating them like garbage IF they make it home? Thanks for the post. K&R :kick:


Edited for punctuaton

[whistle]

2. Sounds like it was a favored real estate acquisition by the Pentagon

...decades back. Who owned the facility originally I wonder? Walter Reed Medical Center Building 18, can a history on the building be rooted out? Maybe it is leased from a reThuglican slumlord

[proReality]

3. That's appalling n/t

[shireen]

4. CONTACT CONGRESS, DEMAND ACTION!!!

it's up to us to stand up for OUR wounded military!!!

Other threads:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x239568
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x239150

[MariaS]

5. Reading this article I was struck by

this paragraph:

Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman, commander at Walter Reed, said in an interview last week that a major reason outpatients stay so long, a change from the days when injured soldiers were discharged as quickly as possible, is that the Army wants to be able to hang on to as many soldiers as it can, "because this is the first time this country has fought a war for so long with an all-volunteer force since the Revolution."

What can someone take from this statement?

[State the Obvious]

6. This should be point #1 in Democrat's argument

The Democrats have to stop the Bush "spin" . The Republcians are currently succeeding in suggesting that Dems don't support the war because they want to cut off funding.

This should be the Democratic rebuttal:

President Bush:

IF you support the troops (as much as you say you do), why did you allow Building 18 to happen?

IF you support the troops, as much as you say you do, why are our wounded soldiers living in rat-infested buildings?

IF you support the troops, as much as you say you do, why are you Veterans benefits?

IF you support the troops, as much as you say you do, why not find out what happened to the missing 10 billion dollars?

IF you support the troops, as much as you say you do, why are our troops still without proper equipment?

If you support the troops, as much as you say you do, why_______(fill in the blank)____________________?


Come on, Democrats, this is your argument. Use it.

[State the Obvious]

7. Sorry, why are you "CUTTING" Veteran's benefits? n/t

[SemperEadem]

9. Post 6 & 7 are spot on

exactly! Support the troops my ass! Is this what they mean by support the troops? Too bad no one can get in there with a hidden camera to tape the atrocities and then turn that into a powerful video tool to shame not only * and his minions, but all those assholes who voted for him a second time. THIS is what that yellow ribbon means... throw them away in a rat infested, cockroach motel of a hospital with mold on the walls and rotten floor boards with the nasty hospital smell of ass everywhere--it's enough to make those poor soldiers want to go back to the fighting--just to get away from that place. Perhaps that's their intention.

[newyawker99]

10. Hi State the Obvious!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[a kennedy]

8. This is just so sad......

:cry: support the troops my *ss Yea right. This is just downright wrong.