http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut?bid=7&pid=167657

02/20/2007

“If Iraq Don't Kill You, Walter Reed Will”

By Katrina vanden Heuvel


According to the Washington Post, Walter Reed Army Medical Center in
the nation's capital has treated one out of every four soldiers
injured in Afghanistan and Iraq.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/17/AR200702170117
2.html

Over 700 outpatients reside on the hospital grounds or nearby as they
receive continued treatment or await bureaucratic decisions – which
can take 18 months or longer.

They outnumber in-hospital patients by 17 to 1.

In a two-part series, reporters Dana Priest and Anne Hull have done a
great service in rendering a portrait of the sad and horrifying state
of "supporting the troops" when they come home to Walter Reed.

These soldiers suffer from amputations, brain injuries, post traumatic
stress, and other life-changing combat wounds.

They are housed in rooms with "mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches,
stained carpets, cheap mattresses," as well as rotting floors and
black mold.

"Suicide attempts and unintentional overdoses from prescription drugs
and alcohol, which is sold on post, are [also] part of the narrative
here."

Soldiers with "brain injuries sat for weeks with no appointments and
no help from the staff to arrange them. Many disappeared even longer.
Some simply left for home."

"If Iraq don't kill you, Walter Reed will," said one soldier's wife.

Meanwhile, the army haggles with these servicemen and women over
disability ratings in order to avoid paying benefits.

("They were fit enough for war, but now they are facing teams of Army
doctors scrutinizing their injuries for signs of preexisting
conditions").

One soldier hit in the head by a steel cargo door of an 18-wheeler –
knocked unconscious and cracking several vertebrae – is told that his
intellectual and emotional difficulties are not a result of the head
injury and therefore he isn't entitled to disability.

Only when a congressional staffer intervenes is further testing done
and the diagnosis corrected.

The same thing happens to another soldier with steel rods in his neck
who can only turn his head by rotating his whole body.

The Mologne House– a 200-room hotel on the hospital grounds – has a
full bar but "not one counselor or psychologist assigned there to
assist soldiers and families in crisis – an idea proposed by Walter
Reed social workers but rejected by the military command that runs the
post."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/18/AR200702180133
5.html

Records are lost, even patients' identities as soldiers are challenged
and they are forced to produce letters or photos to prove their
service.

After 5 ˝ years of combat, it is clear that real support and
protection for our troops means safely bringing them home and fully
funding their treatment – including mental health care.

The Bush administration, its GOP allies, and the neocons will play an
ugly blame game, pushing the fallacy that those who use the power of
the purse to end this war are endangering troops.

They appear to be more interested in protecting their reputations,
egos and legacies than in protecting troops who are refereeing a
bloody civil war that they were never meant to be engaged in.

It is Congress' constitutional right – and moral imperative – to use
the power of the purse to end Bush's bloody war and protect the troops
from further loss and betrayal by this administration.

_____________________________________________________

I advocate moving the Bush Crime Family into building 18 at Walter
Reed Hospital to be locked up for a period of no less than 5 years.

Harry