'Wounded Vets Trade One Hell for Another
by Aaron Glantz
by Aaron Glantz
SAN FRANCISCO - Last year, the United States woke up to the reality of hundreds of thousands of soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan — and began to grapple with what to do about it.
On Feb. 18, 2007, a headline titled “Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration at Army’s Top Medical Facility” splashed across the front page of one of the nation’s premier newspapers, the Washington Post. The article, which described unsafe conditions and substandard care at Walter Reed Army Medical Centre, began with the story of Army Specialist Jeremy Duncan, who was airlifted out of Iraq in February 2006 with a broken neck and a shredded left ear, “nearly dead from blood loss”.”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,” the article read. “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.”
The Post reported that patients inside Walter Reed, which lies just five miles from the White House, found it difficult to receive the care they were promised and felt they deserved.
When the story broke, politicians from both parties expressed outrage and promised solutions. Walter Reed’s commander, Major General George Weightman, was fired almost immediately. Following him out the door was the Secretary of the Army, Frances Harvey.
On Mar. 6, President George W. Bush announced the formation of a bipartisan independent commission lead by former Republican Senator Bob Dole and Donna Shalala, the secretary of Health and Human Services under the Bill Clinton administration.
“It’s unacceptable to me, it’s unacceptable to you, it’s unacceptable to our country, and it’s not going to continue,” Bush told the American Legion in a speech announcing the commission’s formation. “My decisions have put our kids in harm’s way. And I’m concerned about the fact that when they come back they don’t get the full treatment they deserve.”
Three weeks later, Bush paid a visit to Walter Reed, and apologised again: “I was disturbed by their accounts of what went wrong,” Bush told Walter Reed’s staff after a tour of the facility. “It is not right to have someone volunteer to wear our uniform and not get the best possible care. I apologise for what they went through, and we’re going to fix the problem.”
But the allegations raised in the Washington Post were not actually new. In February 2005, the exact same conditions had been raised in a damning series in the on-line magazine Salon. Wounded soldiers at Walter Reed, reporter Mark Benjamin wrote, are “overmedicated, forced to talk about their mothers instead of Iraq, and have to fight for disability pay. Traumatised combat vets say the Army is failing them, and after a year following more than a dozen soldiers at Walter Reed Hospital, I believe them.”'
The Post reported that patients inside Walter Reed, which lies just five miles from the White House, found it difficult to receive the care they were promised and felt they deserved.
When the story broke, politicians from both parties expressed outrage and promised solutions. Walter Reed’s commander, Major General George Weightman, was fired almost immediately. Following him out the door was the Secretary of the Army, Frances Harvey.
On Mar. 6, President George W. Bush announced the formation of a bipartisan independent commission lead by former Republican Senator Bob Dole and Donna Shalala, the secretary of Health and Human Services under the Bill Clinton administration.
“It’s unacceptable to me, it’s unacceptable to you, it’s unacceptable to our country, and it’s not going to continue,” Bush told the American Legion in a speech announcing the commission’s formation. “My decisions have put our kids in harm’s way. And I’m concerned about the fact that when they come back they don’t get the full treatment they deserve.”
Three weeks later, Bush paid a visit to Walter Reed, and apologised again: “I was disturbed by their accounts of what went wrong,” Bush told Walter Reed’s staff after a tour of the facility. “It is not right to have someone volunteer to wear our uniform and not get the best possible care. I apologise for what they went through, and we’re going to fix the problem.”
But the allegations raised in the Washington Post were not actually new. In February 2005, the exact same conditions had been raised in a damning series in the on-line magazine Salon. Wounded soldiers at Walter Reed, reporter Mark Benjamin wrote, are “overmedicated, forced to talk about their mothers instead of Iraq, and have to fight for disability pay. Traumatised combat vets say the Army is failing them, and after a year following more than a dozen soldiers at Walter Reed Hospital, I believe them.”'
Lees verder: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/01/16/6408/
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