Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration At Army's Top Medical Facility. Thanks Bush!

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

By Dana Priest and Anne Hull
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, February 18, 2007; 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 ****roaches, 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.

While the hospital is a place of scrubbed-down order and daily miracles, with
medical advances saving more soldiers than ever, the outpatients in the Other
Walter Reed encounter a messy bureaucratic battlefield nearly as chaotic as the
real battlefields they faced overseas.

On the worst days, soldiers say they feel like they are living a chapter of
"Catch-22." The wounded manage other wounded. Soldiers dealing with
psychological disorders of their own have been put in charge of others at risk
of suicide.

Disengaged clerks, unqualified platoon sergeants and overworked case managers
fumble with simple needs: feeding soldiers' families who are close to poverty,
replacing a uniform ripped off by medics in the desert sand or helping a
brain-damaged soldier remember his next appointment.

"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."

Soldiers, family members, volunteers and caregivers who have tried to fix the
system say each mishap seems trivial by itself, but the cumulative effect wears
down the spirits of the wounded and can stall their recovery.

"It creates resentment and disenfranchisement," said Joe Wilson, a clinical
social worker at Walter Reed. "These soldiers will withdraw and stay in their
rooms. They will actively avoid the very treatment and services that are meant
to be helpful."

Danny Soto, a national service officer for Disabled American Veterans who helps
dozens of wounded service members each week at Walter Reed, said soldiers "get
awesome medical care and their lives are being saved," but, "Then they get into
the administrative part of it and they are like, 'You saved me for what?' The
soldiers feel like they are not getting proper respect. This leads to anger."

This world is invisible to outsiders. Walter Reed occasionally showcases the
heroism of these wounded soldiers and emphasizes that all is well under the
circumstances. President Bush, former defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and
members of Congress have promised the best care during their regular visits to
the hospital's spit-polished amputee unit, Ward 57.

"We owe them all we can give them," Bush said during his last visit, a few days
before Christmas. "Not only for when they're in harm's way, but when they come
home to help them adjust if they have wounds, or help them adjust after their
time in service."

Along with the government promises, the American public, determined not to
repeat the divisive Vietnam experience, has embraced the soldiers even as the
war grows more controversial at home. Walter Reed is awash in the generosity of
volunteers, businesses and celebrities who donate money, plane tickets,
telephone cards and steak dinners.

Yet at a deeper level, the soldiers say they feel alone and frustrated.
Seventy-five percent of the troops polled by Walter Reed last March said their
experience was "stressful." Suicide attempts and unintentional overdoses from
prescription drugs and alcohol, which is sold on post, are part of the narrative
here.

Vera Heron spent 15 frustrating months living on post to help care for her son.
"It just absolutely took forever to get anything done," Heron said. "They do the
paperwork, they lose the paperwork. Then they have to redo the paperwork. You
are talking about guys and girls whose lives are disrupted for the rest of their
lives, and they don't put any priority on it."

Family members who speak only Spanish have had to rely on Salvadoran
housekeepers, a Cuban bus driver, the Panamanian bartender and a Mexican floor
cleaner for help. Walter Reed maintains a list of bilingual staffers, but they
are rarely called on, according to soldiers and families and Walter Reed staff
members.

Evis Morales's severely wounded son was transferred to the National Naval
Medical Center in Bethesda for surgery shortly after she arrived at Walter Reed.
She had checked into her government-paid room on post, but she slept in the
lobby of the Bethesda hospital for two weeks because no one told her there is a
free shuttle between the two facilities. "They just let me off the bus and said
'Bye-bye,' " recalled Morales, a Puerto Rico resident.

Morales found help after she ran out of money, when she called a hotline number
and a Spanish-speaking operator happened to answer.

"If they can have Spanish-speaking recruits to convince my son to go into the
Army, why can't they have Spanish-speaking translators when he's injured?"
Morales asked. "It's so confusing, so disorienting."

Soldiers, wives, mothers, social workers and the heads of volunteer
organizations have complained repeatedly to the military command about what one
called "The Handbook No One Gets" that would explain life as an outpatient. Most
soldiers polled in the March survey said they got their information from
friends. Only 12 percent said any Army literature had been helpful.

"They've been behind from Day One," said Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), who
headed the House Government Reform Committee, which investigated problems at
Walter Reed and other Army facilities. "Even the stuff they've fixed has only
been patched."

Among the public, Davis said, "there's vast appreciation for soldiers, but
there's a lack of focus on what happens to them" when they return. "It's awful."

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."

Acknowledging the problems with outpatient care, Weightman said Walter Reed has
taken steps over the past year to improve conditions for the outpatient army,
which at its peak in summer 2005 numbered nearly 900, not to mention the
hundreds of family members who come to care for them. One platoon sergeant used
to be in charge of 125 patients; now each one manages 30. Platoon sergeants with
psychological problems are more carefully screened. And officials have increased
the numbers of case managers and patient advocates to help with the complex
disability benefit process, which Weightman called "one of the biggest sources
of delay."

And to help steer the wounded and their families through the complicated
bureaucracy, Weightman said, Walter Reed has recently begun holding twice-weekly
informational meetings. "We felt we were pushing information out before, but the
reality is, it was overwhelming," he said. "Is it fail-proof? No. But we've put
more resources on it."

He said a 21,500-troop increase in Iraq has Walter Reed bracing for "potentially
a lot more" casualties.

Bureaucratic Battles

The best known of the Army's medical centers, Walter Reed opened in 1909 with 10
patients. It has treated the wounded from every war since, and nearly one of
every four service members injured in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The outpatients are assigned to one of five buildings attached to the post,
including Building 18, just across from the front gates on Georgia Avenue. To
accommodate the overflow, some are sent to nearby hotels and apartments. Living
conditions range from the disrepair of Building 18 to the relative elegance of
Mologne House, a hotel that opened on the post in 1998, when the typical guest
was a visiting family member or a retiree on vacation.

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 ****tail at the
end of their long trip from Iraq via Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in
Germany and Andrews Air Force Base.

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.

Shannon had led the 2nd Infantry Division's Ghost Recon Platoon until he was
felled in a gun battle in Ramadi. He liked the solitary work of a sniper; "Lone
Wolf" was his call name. But he did not expect to be left alone by the Army
after such serious surgery and a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder. He
had appointments during his first two weeks as an outpatient, then nothing.

"I thought, 'Shouldn't they contact me?' " he said. "I didn't understand the
paperwork. I'd start calling phone numbers, asking if I had appointments. I
finally ran across someone who said: 'I'm your case manager. Where have you
been?'

"Well, I've been here! Jeez Louise, people, I'm your hospital patient!"

Like Shannon, many soldiers with impaired memory from 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.

One outpatient, a 57-year-old staff sergeant who had a heart attack in
Afghanistan, was given 200 rooms to supervise at the end of 2005. He quickly
discovered that some outpatients had left the post months earlier and would
check in by phone. "We called them 'call-in patients,' " said Staff Sgt. Mike
McCauley, whose dormant PTSD from Vietnam was triggered by what he saw on the
job: so many young and wounded, and three bodies being carried from the
hospital.

Life beyond the hospital bed is a frustrating mountain of paperwork. The typical
soldier is required to file 22 documents with eight different commands -- most
of them off-post -- to enter and exit the medical processing world, according to
government investigators. Sixteen different information systems are used to
process the forms, but few of them can communicate with one another. The Army's
three personnel databases cannot read each other's files and can't interact with
the separate pay system or the medical recordkeeping databases.

The disappearance of necessary forms and records is the most common reason
soldiers languish at Walter Reed longer than they should, according to soldiers,
family members and staffers. Sometimes the Army has no record that a soldier
even served in Iraq. A combat medic who did three tours had to bring in letters
and photos of herself in Iraq to show she that had been there, after a clerk
couldn't find a record of her service.

Shannon, who wears an eye patch and a visible skull implant, said he had to
prove he had served in Iraq when he tried to get a free uniform to replace the
bloody one left behind on a medic's stretcher. When he finally tracked down the
supply clerk, he discovered the problem: His name was mistakenly left off the
"GWOT list" -- the list of "Global War on Terrorism" patients with priority
funding from the Defense Department.

He brought his Purple Heart to the clerk to prove he was in Iraq.

Lost paperwork for new uniforms has forced some soldiers to attend their own
Purple Heart ceremonies and the official birthday party for the Army in gym
clothes, only to be chewed out by superiors.

The Army has tried to re-create the organization of a typical military unit at
Walter Reed. Soldiers are assigned to one of two companies while they are
outpatients -- the Medical Holding Company (Medhold) for active-duty soldiers
and the Medical Holdover Company for Reserve and National Guard soldiers. The
companies are broken into platoons that are led by platoon sergeants, the Army
equivalent of a parent.

Under normal circumstances, good sergeants know everything about the soldiers
under their charge: vices and talents, moods and bad habits, even family
stresses.

At Walter Reed, however, outpatients have been drafted to serve as platoon
sergeants and have struggled with their responsibilities. Sgt. David Thomas, a
42-year-old amputee with the Tennessee National Guard, said his platoon sergeant
couldn't remember his name. "We wondered if he had mental problems," Thomas
said. "Sometimes I'd wear my leg, other times I'd take my wheelchair. He would
think I was a different person. We thought, 'My God, has this man lost it?' "

Civilian care coordinators and case managers are supposed to track injured
soldiers and help them with appointments, but government investigators and
soldiers complain that they are poorly trained and often do not understand the
system.

One amputee, a senior enlisted man who asked not to be identified because he is
back on active duty, said he received orders to report to a base in Germany as
he sat drooling in his wheelchair in a haze of medication. "I went to Medhold
many times in my wheelchair to fix it, but no one there could help me," he said.

Finally, his wife met an aide to then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D.
Wolfowitz, who got the erroneous paperwork corrected with one phone call. When
the aide called with the news, he told the soldier, "They don't even know you
exist."

"They didn't know who I was or where I was," the soldier said. "And I was in
contact with my platoon sergeant every day."

The lack of accountability weighed on Shannon. He hated the isolation of the
younger troops. The Army's failure to account for them each day wore on him.
When a 19-year-old soldier down the hall died, Shannon knew he had to take
action.

The soldier, Cpl. Jeremy Harper, returned from Iraq with PTSD after seeing three
buddies die. He kept his room dark, refused his combat medals and always seemed
heavily medicated, said people who knew him. According to his mother, Harper was
drunkenly wandering the lobby of the Mologne House on New Year's Eve 2004,
looking for a ride home to West Virginia. The next morning he was found dead in
his room. An autopsy showed alcohol poisoning, she said.

"I can't understand how they could have let kids under the age of 21 have
liquor," said Victoria Harper, crying. "He was supposed to be right there at
Walter Reed hospital. . . . I feel that they didn't take care of him or watch
him as close as they should have."

The Army posthumously awarded Harper a Bronze Star for his actions in Iraq.

Shannon viewed Harper's death as symptomatic of a larger tragedy -- the Army had
broken its covenant with its troops. "Somebody didn't take care of him," he
would later say. "It makes me want to cry. "

Shannon and another soldier decided to keep tabs on the brain injury ward. "I'm
a staff sergeant in the U.S. Army, and I take care of people," he said. The two
soldiers walked the ward every day with a list of names. If a name dropped off
the large white board at the nurses' station, Shannon would hound the nurses to
check their files and figure out where the soldier had gone.

Sometimes the patients had been transferred to another hospital. If they had
been released to one of the residences on post, Shannon and his buddy would
pester the front desk managers to make sure the new charges were indeed there.
"But two out of 10, when I asked where they were, they'd just say, 'They're
gone,' " Shannon said.

Even after Weightman and his commanders instituted new measures to keep better
track of soldiers, two young men left post one night in November and died in a
high-speed car crash in Virginia. The driver was supposed to be restricted to
Walter Reed because he had tested positive for illegal drugs, Weightman said.

Part of the tension at Walter Reed comes from a setting that is both military
and medical. Marine Sgt. Ryan Groves, the squad leader who lost one leg and the
use of his other in a grenade attack, said his recovery was made more difficult
by a Marine liaison officer who had never seen combat but dogged him about
having his mother in his room on post. The rules allowed her to be there, but
the officer said she was taking up valuable bed space.

"When you join the Marine Corps, they tell you, you can forget about your mama.
'You have no mama. We are your mama,' " Groves said. "That training works in
combat. It doesn't work when you are wounded."

Frustration at Every Turn

The frustrations of an outpatient's day begin before dawn. On a dark,
rain-soaked morning this winter, Sgt. Archie Benware, 53, hobbled over to his
National Guard platoon office at Walter Reed. Benware had done two tours in
Iraq. His head had been crushed between two 2,100-pound concrete barriers in
Ramadi, and now it was dented like a tin can. His legs were stiff from knee
surgery. But here he was, trying to take care of business.

At the platoon office, he scanned the white board on the wall. Six soldiers were
listed as AWOL. The platoon sergeant was nowhere to be found, leaving several
soldiers stranded with their requests.

Benware walked around the corner to arrange a dental appointment -- his teeth
were knocked out in the accident. He was told by a case manager that another
case worker, not his doctor, would have to approve the procedure.

"Goddamn it, that's unbelievable!" snapped his wife, Barb, who accompanied him
because he can no longer remember all of his appointments.

Not as unbelievable as the time he received a manila envelope containing the
gynecological report of a young female soldier.

Next came 7 a.m. formation, one way Walter Reed tries to keep track of hundreds
of wounded. Formation is also held to maintain some discipline. Soldiers limp to
the old Red Cross building in rain, ice and snow. Army regulations say they
can't use umbrellas, even here. A triple amputee has mastered the art of putting
on his uniform by himself and rolling in just in time. Others are so gorked out
on pills that they seem on the verge of nodding off.

"Fall in!" a platoon sergeant shouted at Friday formation. The noisy room of
soldiers turned silent.

An Army chaplain opened with a verse from the Bible. "Why are we here?" she
asked. She talked about heroes and service to country. "We were injured in many
ways."

Someone announced free tickets to hockey games, a Ravens game, a movie
screening, a dinner at McCormick and Schmick's, all compliments of local
businesses.

Every formation includes a safety briefing. Usually it is a warning about mixing
alcohol with meds, or driving too fast, or domestic abuse. "Do not beat your
spouse or children. Do not let your spouse or children beat you," a sergeant
said, to laughter. This morning's briefing included a warning about black ice, a
particular menace to the amputees.

Dress warm, the sergeant said. "I see some guys rolling around in their
wheelchairs in 30 degrees in T-shirts."

Soldiers hate formation for its petty condescension. They gutted out a year in
the desert, and now they are being treated like children.

"I'm trying to think outside the box here, maybe moving formation to Wagner
Gym," the commander said, addressing concerns that formation was too far from
soldiers' quarters in the cold weather. "But guess what? Those are nice wood
floors. They have to be covered by a tarp. There's a tarp that's got to be
rolled out over the wooden floors. Then it has to be cleaned, with 400 soldiers
stepping all over it. Then it's got to be rolled up."

"Now, who thinks Wagner Gym is a good idea?"

Explaining this strange world to family members is not easy. At an orientation
for new arrivals, a staff sergeant walked them through the idiosyncrasies of
Army financing. He said one relative could receive a 15-day advance on the $64
per diem either in cash or as an electronic transfer: "I highly recommend that
you take the cash," he said. "There's no guarantee the transfer will get to your
bank." The audience yawned.

Actually, he went on, relatives can collect only 80 percent of this advance,
which comes to $51.20 a day. "The cashier has no change, so we drop to $50. We
give you the rest" -- the $1.20 a day -- "when you leave."

The crowd was anxious, exhausted. A child crawled on the floor. The sergeant
plowed on. "You need to figure out how long your loved one is going to be an
inpatient," he said, something even the doctors can't accurately predict from
day to day. "Because if you sign up for the lodging advance," which is $150 a
day, "and they get out the next day, you owe the government the advance back of
$150 a day."

A case manager took the floor to remind everyone that soldiers are required to
be in uniform most of the time, though some of the wounded are amputees or their
legs are pinned together by bulky braces. "We have break-away clothing with
Velcro!" she announced with a smile. "Welcome to Walter Reed!"

A Bleak Life in Building 18

"Building 18! There is a rodent infestation issue!" bellowed the commander to
his troops one morning at formation. "It doesn't help when you live like a
rodent! I can't believe people live like that! I was appalled by some of your
rooms!"

Life in Building 18 is the bleakest homecoming for men and women whose
government promised them good care in return for their sacrifices.

One case manager was so disgusted, she bought roach bombs for the rooms. Mouse
traps are handed out. It doesn't help that soldiers there subsist on carry-out
food because the hospital cafeteria is such a hike on cold nights. They make do
with microwaves and hot plates.

Army officials say they "started an aggressive campaign to deal with the mice
infestation" last October and that the problem is now at a "manageable level."
They also say they will "review all outstanding work orders" in the next 30
days.

Soldiers discharged from the psychiatric ward are often assigned to Building 18.
Buses and ambulances blare all night. While injured soldiers pull guard duty in
the foyer, a broken garage door allows unmonitored entry from the rear.
Struggling with schizophrenia, PTSD, paranoid delusional disorder and traumatic
brain injury, soldiers feel especially vulnerable in that setting, just outside
the post gates, on a street where drug dealers work the corner at night.

"I've been close to mortars. I've held my own pretty good," said Spec. George
Romero, 25, who came back from Iraq with a psychological disorder. "But here . .
.. I think it has affected my ability to get over it . . . dealing with potential
threats every day."

After Spec. Jeremy Duncan, 30, got out of the hospital and was assigned to
Building 18, he had to navigate across the traffic of Georgia Avenue for
appointments. Even after knee surgery, he had to limp back and forth on crutches
and in pain. Over time, black mold invaded his room.

But Duncan would rather suffer with the mold than move to another room and share
his convalescence in tight quarters with a wounded stranger. "I have mold on the
walls, a hole in the shower ceiling, but . . . I don't want someone waking me up
coming in."

Wilson, the clinical social worker at Walter Reed, was part of a staff team that
recognized Building 18's toll on the wounded. He mapped out a plan and, in
September, was given a $30,000 grant from the Commander's Initiative Account for
improvements. He ordered some equipment, including a pool table and air hockey
table, which have not yet arrived. A Psychiatry Department functionary held up
the rest of the money because she feared that buying a lot of recreational
equipment close to Christmas would trigger an audit, Wilson said.

In January, Wilson was told that the funds were no longer available and that he
would have to submit a new request. "It's absurd," he said. "Seven months of
work down the drain. I have nothing to show for this project. It's a great
example of what we're up against."

A pool table and two flat-screen TVs were eventually donated from elsewhere.

But Wilson had had enough. Three weeks ago he turned in his resignation. "It's
too difficult to get anything done with this broken-down bureaucracy," he said.

At town hall meetings, the soldiers of Building 18 keep pushing commanders to
improve conditions. But some things have gotten worse. In December, a
contracting dispute held up building repairs.

"I hate it," said Romero, who stays in his room all day. "There are ****roaches.
The elevator doesn't work. The garage door doesn't work. Sometimes there's no
heat, no water. . . . I told my platoon sergeant I want to leave. I told the
town hall meeting. I talked to the doctors and medical staff. They just said you
kind of got to get used to the outside world. . . . My platoon sergeant said,
'Suck it up!' "

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


Hey Republicans, got your Intelligent Design flu shot yet?
 
On Feb 20, 1:05 pm, Liman Jig Tacker <LimanTac...@aol.com> wrote:
> Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration At Army's Top Medical Facility
>
> By Dana Priest and Anne Hull
> Washington Post Staff Writers
> Sunday, February 18, 2007; 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 ****roaches, 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.
>
> While the hospital is a place of scrubbed-down order and daily miracles, with
> medical advances saving more soldiers than ever, the outpatients in the Other
> Walter Reed encounter a messy bureaucratic battlefield nearly as chaotic as the
> real battlefields they faced overseas.
>
> On the worst days, soldiers say they feel like they are living a chapter of
> "Catch-22." The wounded manage other wounded. Soldiers dealing with
> psychological disorders of their own have been put in charge of others at risk
> of suicide.
>
> Disengaged clerks, unqualified platoon sergeants and overworked case managers
> fumble with simple needs: feeding soldiers' families who are close to poverty,
> replacing a uniform ripped off by medics in the desert sand or helping a
> brain-damaged soldier remember his next appointment.
>
> "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."
>
> Soldiers, family members, volunteers and caregivers who have tried to fix the
> system say each mishap seems trivial by itself, but the cumulative effect wears
> down the spirits of the wounded and can stall their recovery.
>
> "It creates resentment and disenfranchisement," said Joe Wilson, a clinical
> social worker at Walter Reed. "These soldiers will withdraw and stay in their
> rooms. They will actively avoid the very treatment and services that are meant
> to be helpful."
>
> Danny Soto, a national service officer for Disabled American Veterans who helps
> dozens of wounded service members each week at Walter Reed, said soldiers "get
> awesome medical care and their lives are being saved," but, "Then they get into
> the administrative part of it and they are like, 'You saved me for what?' The
> soldiers feel like they are not getting proper respect. This leads to anger."
>
> This world is invisible to outsiders. Walter Reed occasionally showcases the
> heroism of these wounded soldiers and emphasizes that all is well under the
> circumstances. President Bush, former defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and
> members of Congress have promised the best care during their regular visits to
> the hospital's spit-polished amputee unit, Ward 57.
>
> "We owe them all we can give them," Bush said during his last visit, a few days
> before Christmas. "Not only for when they're in harm's way, but when they come
> home to help them adjust if they have wounds, or help them adjust after their
> time in service."
>
> Along with the government promises, the American public, determined not to
> repeat the divisive Vietnam experience, has embraced the soldiers even as the
> war grows more controversial at home. Walter Reed is awash in the generosity of
> volunteers, businesses and celebrities who donate money, plane tickets,
> telephone cards and steak dinners.
>
> Yet at a deeper level, the soldiers say they feel alone and frustrated.
> Seventy-five percent of the troops polled by Walter Reed last March said their
> experience was "stressful." Suicide attempts and unintentional overdoses from
> prescription drugs and alcohol, which is sold on post, are part of the narrative
> here.
>
> Vera Heron spent 15 frustrating months living on post to help care for her son.
> "It just absolutely took forever to get anything done," Heron said. "They do the
> paperwork, they lose the paperwork. Then they have to redo the paperwork. You
> are talking about guys and girls whose lives are disrupted for the rest of their
> lives, and they don't put any priority on it."
>
> Family members who speak only Spanish have had to rely on Salvadoran
> housekeepers, a Cuban bus driver, the Panamanian bartender and a Mexican floor
> cleaner for help. Walter Reed maintains a list of bilingual staffers, but they
> are rarely called on, according to soldiers and families and Walter Reed staff
> members.
>
> Evis Morales's severely wounded son was transferred to the National Naval
> Medical Center in Bethesda for surgery shortly after she arrived at Walter Reed.
> She had checked into her government-paid room on post, but she slept in the
> lobby of the Bethesda hospital for two weeks because no one told her there is a
> free shuttle between the two facilities. "They just let me off the bus and said
> 'Bye-bye,' " recalled Morales, a Puerto Rico resident.
>
> Morales found help after she ran out of money, when she called a hotline number
> and a Spanish-speaking operator happened to answer.
>
> "If they can have Spanish-speaking recruits to convince my son to go into the
> Army, why can't they have Spanish-speaking translators when he's injured?"
> Morales asked. "It's so confusing, so disorienting."
>
> Soldiers, wives, mothers, social workers and the heads of volunteer
> organizations have complained repeatedly to the military command about what one
> called "The Handbook No One Gets" that would explain life as an outpatient. Most
> soldiers polled in the March survey said they got their information from
> friends. Only 12 percent said any Army literature had been helpful.
>
> "They've been behind from Day One," said Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), who
> headed the House Government Reform Committee, which investigated problems at
> Walter Reed and other Army facilities. "Even the stuff they've fixed has only
> been patched."
>
> Among the public, Davis said, "there's vast appreciation for soldiers, but
> there's a lack of focus on what happens to them" when they return. "It's awful."
>
> 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."
>
> Acknowledging the problems with outpatient care, Weightman said Walter Reed has
> taken steps over the past year to improve conditions for the outpatient army,
> which at its peak in summer 2005 numbered nearly 900, not to mention the
> hundreds of family members who come to care for them. One platoon sergeant used
> to be in charge of 125 patients; now each one manages 30. Platoon sergeants with
> psychological problems are more carefully screened. And officials have increased
> the numbers of case managers and patient advocates to help with the complex
> disability benefit process, which Weightman called "one of the biggest sources
> of delay."
>
> And to help steer the wounded and their families through the complicated
> bureaucracy, Weightman said, Walter Reed has recently begun holding twice-weekly
> informational meetings. "We felt we were pushing information out before, but the
> reality is, it was overwhelming," he said. "Is it fail-proof? No. But we've put
> more resources on it."
>
> He said a 21,500-troop increase in Iraq has Walter Reed bracing for "potentially
> a lot more" casualties.
>
> Bureaucratic Battles
>
> The best known of the Army's medical centers, Walter Reed opened in 1909 with 10
> patients. It has treated the wounded from every war since, and nearly one of
> every four service members injured in Iraq and Afghanistan.
>
> The outpatients are assigned to one of five buildings attached to the post,
> including Building 18, just across from the front gates on Georgia Avenue. To
> accommodate the overflow, some are sent to nearby hotels and apartments. Living
> conditions range from the disrepair of Building 18 to the relative elegance of
> Mologne House, a hotel that opened on the post in 1998, when the typical guest
> was a visiting family member or a retiree on vacation.
>
> 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 ****tail at the
> end of their long trip from Iraq via Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in
> Germany and Andrews Air Force Base.
>
> 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.
>
> Shannon had led the 2nd Infantry Division's Ghost Recon Platoon until he was
> felled in a gun battle in Ramadi. He liked the solitary work of a sniper; "Lone
> Wolf" was his call name. But he did not expect to be left alone by the Army
> after such serious surgery and a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder. He
> had appointments during his first two weeks as an outpatient, then nothing.
>
> "I thought, 'Shouldn't they contact me?' " he said. "I didn't understand the
> paperwork. I'd start calling phone numbers, asking if I had appointments. I
> finally ran across someone who said: 'I'm your case manager. Where have you
> been?'
>
> "Well, I've been here! Jeez Louise, people, I'm your hospital patient!"
>
> Like Shannon, many soldiers with impaired memory from 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.
>
> One outpatient, a 57-year-old staff sergeant who had a heart attack in
> Afghanistan, was given 200 rooms to supervise at the end of 2005. He quickly
> discovered that some outpatients had left the post months earlier and would
> check in by phone. "We called them 'call-in patients,' " said Staff Sgt. Mike
> McCauley, whose dormant PTSD from Vietnam was triggered by what he saw on the
> job: so many young and wounded, and three bodies being carried from the
> hospital.
>
> Life beyond the hospital bed is a frustrating mountain of paperwork. The typical
> soldier is required to file 22 documents with eight different commands -- most
> of them off-post -- to enter and exit the medical processing world, according to
> government investigators. Sixteen different information systems are used to
> process the forms, but few of them can communicate with one another. The Army's
> three personnel databases cannot read each other's files and can't interact with
> the separate pay system or the medical recordkeeping databases.
>
> The disappearance of necessary forms and records is the most common reason
> soldiers languish at Walter Reed longer than they should, according to soldiers,
> family members and staffers. Sometimes the Army has no record that a soldier
> even served in Iraq. A combat medic who did three tours had to bring in letters
> and photos of herself in Iraq to show she that had been there, after a clerk
> couldn't find a record of her service.
>
> Shannon, who wears an eye patch and a visible skull implant, said he had to
> prove he had served in Iraq when he tried to get a free uniform to replace the
> bloody one left behind on a medic's stretcher. When he finally tracked down the
> supply clerk, he discovered the problem: His name was mistakenly left off the
> "GWOT list" -- the list of "Global War on Terrorism" patients with priority
> funding from the Defense Department.
>
> He brought his Purple Heart to the clerk to prove he was in Iraq.
>
> Lost paperwork for new uniforms has forced some soldiers to attend their own
> Purple Heart ceremonies and the official birthday party for the Army in gym
> clothes, only to be chewed out by superiors.
>
> The Army has tried to re-create the organization of a typical military unit at
> Walter Reed. Soldiers are assigned to one of two companies while they are
> outpatients -- the Medical Holding Company (Medhold) for active-duty soldiers
> and the Medical Holdover Company for Reserve and National Guard soldiers. The
> companies are broken into platoons that are led by platoon sergeants, the Army
> equivalent of a parent.
>
> Under normal circumstances, good sergeants know everything about the soldiers
> under their charge: vices and talents, moods and bad habits, even family
> stresses.
>
> At Walter Reed, however, outpatients have been drafted to serve as platoon
> sergeants and have struggled with their responsibilities. Sgt. David Thomas, a
> 42-year-old amputee with the Tennessee National Guard, said his platoon sergeant
> couldn't remember his name. "We wondered if he had mental problems," Thomas
> said. "Sometimes I'd wear my leg, other times I'd take my wheelchair. He would
> think I was a different person. We thought, 'My God, has this man lost it?' "
>
> Civilian care coordinators and case managers are supposed to track injured
> soldiers and help them with appointments, but government investigators and
> soldiers complain that they are poorly trained and often do not understand the
> system.
>
> One amputee, a senior enlisted man who asked not to be identified because he is
> back on active duty, said he received orders to report to a base in Germany as
> he sat drooling in his wheelchair in a haze of medication. "I went to Medhold
> many times in my wheelchair to fix it, but no one there could help me," he said.
>
> Finally, his wife met an aide to then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D.
> Wolfowitz, who got the erroneous paperwork corrected with one phone call. When
> the aide called with the news, he told the soldier, "They don't even know you
> exist."
>
> "They didn't know who I was or where I was," the soldier said. "And I was in
> contact with my platoon sergeant every day."
>
> The lack of accountability weighed on Shannon. He hated the isolation of the
> younger troops. The Army's failure to account for them each day wore on him.
> When a 19-year-old soldier down the hall died, Shannon knew he had to take
> action.
>
> The soldier, Cpl. Jeremy Harper, returned from Iraq with PTSD after seeing three
> buddies die. He kept his room dark, refused his combat medals and always seemed
> heavily medicated, said people who knew him. According to his mother, Harper was
> drunkenly wandering the lobby of the Mologne House on New Year's Eve 2004,
> looking for a ride home to West Virginia. The next morning he was found dead in
> his room. An autopsy showed alcohol poisoning, she said.
>
> "I can't understand how they could have let kids under the age of 21 have
> liquor," said Victoria Harper, crying. "He was supposed to be right there at
> Walter Reed hospital. . . . I feel that they didn't take care of him or watch
> him as close as they should have."
>
> The Army posthumously awarded Harper a Bronze Star for his actions in Iraq.
>
> Shannon viewed Harper's death as symptomatic of a larger tragedy -- the Army had
> broken its covenant with its troops. "Somebody didn't take care of him," he
> would later say. "It makes me want to cry. "
>
> Shannon and another soldier decided to keep tabs on the brain injury ward. "I'm
> a staff sergeant in the U.S. Army, and I take care of people," he said. The two
> soldiers walked the ward every day with a list of names. If a name dropped off
> the large white board at the nurses' station, Shannon would hound the nurses to
> check their files and figure out where the soldier had gone.
>
> Sometimes the patients had been transferred to another hospital. If they had
> been released to one of the residences on post, Shannon and his buddy would
> pester the front desk managers to make sure the new charges were indeed there.
> "But two out of 10, when I asked where they were, they'd just say, 'They're
> gone,' " Shannon said.
>
> Even after Weightman and his commanders instituted new measures to keep better
> track of soldiers, two young men left post one night in November and died in a
> high-speed car crash in Virginia. The driver was supposed to be restricted to
> Walter Reed because he had tested positive for illegal drugs, Weightman said.
>
> Part of the tension at Walter Reed comes from a setting that is both military
> and medical. Marine Sgt. Ryan Groves, the squad leader who lost one leg and the
> use of his other in a grenade attack, said his recovery was made more difficult
> by a Marine liaison officer who had never seen combat but dogged him about
> having his mother in his room on post. The rules allowed her to be there, but
> the officer said she was taking up valuable bed space.
>
> "When you join the Marine Corps, they tell you, you can forget about your mama.
> 'You have no mama. We are your mama,' " Groves said. "That training works in
> combat. It doesn't work when you are wounded."
>
> Frustration at Every Turn
>
> The frustrations of an outpatient's day begin before dawn. On a dark,
> rain-soaked morning this winter, Sgt. Archie Benware, 53, hobbled over to his
> National Guard platoon office at Walter Reed. Benware had done two tours in
> Iraq. His head had been crushed between two 2,100-pound concrete barriers in
> Ramadi, and now it was dented like a tin can. His legs were stiff from knee
> surgery. But here he was, trying to take care of business.
>
> At the platoon office, he scanned the white board on the wall. Six soldiers were
> listed as AWOL. The platoon sergeant was nowhere to be found, leaving several
> soldiers stranded with their requests.
>
> Benware walked around the corner to arrange a dental appointment -- his teeth
> were knocked out in the accident. He was told by a case manager that another
> case worker, not his doctor, would have to approve the procedure.
>
> "Goddamn it, that's unbelievable!" snapped his wife, Barb, who accompanied him
> because he can no longer remember all of his appointments.
>
> Not as unbelievable as the time he received a manila envelope containing the
> gynecological report of a young female soldier.
>
> Next came 7 a.m. formation, one way Walter Reed tries to keep track of hundreds
> of wounded. Formation is also held to maintain some discipline. Soldiers limp to
> the old Red Cross building in rain, ice and snow. Army regulations say they
> can't use umbrellas, even here. A triple amputee has mastered the art of putting
> on his uniform by himself and rolling in just in time. Others are so gorked out
> on pills that they seem on the verge of nodding off.
>
> "Fall in!" a platoon sergeant shouted at Friday formation. The noisy room of
> soldiers turned silent.
>
> An Army chaplain opened with a verse from the Bible. "Why are we here?" she
> asked. She talked about heroes and service to country. "We were injured in many
> ways."
>
> Someone announced free tickets to hockey games, a Ravens game, a movie
> screening, a dinner at McCormick and Schmick's, all compliments of local
> businesses.
>
> Every formation includes a safety briefing. Usually it is a warning about mixing
> alcohol with meds, or driving too fast, or domestic abuse. "Do not beat your
> spouse or children. Do not let your spouse or children beat you," a sergeant
> said, to laughter. This morning's briefing included a warning about black ice, a
> particular menace to the amputees.
>
> Dress warm, the sergeant said. "I see some guys rolling around in their
> wheelchairs in 30 degrees in T-shirts."
>
> Soldiers hate formation for its petty condescension. They gutted out a year in
> the desert, and now they are being treated like children.
>
> "I'm trying to think outside the box here, maybe moving formation to Wagner
> Gym," the commander said, addressing concerns that formation was too far from
> soldiers' quarters in the cold weather. "But guess what? Those are nice wood
> floors. They have to be covered by a tarp. There's a tarp that's got to be
> rolled out over the wooden floors. Then it has to be cleaned, with 400 soldiers
> stepping all over it. Then it's got to be rolled up."
>
> "Now, who thinks Wagner Gym is a good idea?"
>
> Explaining this strange world to family members is not easy. At an orientation
> for new arrivals, a staff sergeant walked them through the idiosyncrasies of
> Army financing. He said one relative could receive a 15-day advance on the $64
> per diem either in cash or as an electronic transfer: "I highly recommend that
> you take the cash," he said. "There's no guarantee the transfer will get to your
> bank." The audience yawned.
>
> Actually, he went on, relatives can collect only 80 percent of this advance,
> which comes to $51.20 a day. "The cashier has no change, so we drop to $50. We
> give you the rest" -- the $1.20 a day -- "when you leave."
>
> The crowd was anxious, exhausted. A child crawled on the floor. The sergeant
> plowed on. "You need to figure out how long your loved one is going to be an
> inpatient," he said, something even the doctors can't accurately predict from
> day to day. "Because if you sign up for the lodging advance," which is $150 a
> day, "and they get out the next day, you owe the government the advance back of
> $150 a day."
>
> A case manager took the floor to remind everyone that soldiers are required to
> be in uniform most of the time, though some of the wounded are amputees or their
> legs are pinned together by bulky braces. "We have break-away clothing with
> Velcro!" she announced with a smile. "Welcome to Walter Reed!"
>
> A Bleak Life in Building 18
>
> "Building 18! There is a rodent infestation issue!" bellowed the commander to
> his troops one morning at formation. "It doesn't help when you live like a
> rodent! I can't believe people live like that! I was appalled by some of your
> rooms!"
>
> Life in Building 18 is the bleakest homecoming for men and women whose
> government promised them good care in return for their sacrifices.
>
> One case manager was so disgusted, she bought roach bombs for the rooms. Mouse
> traps are handed out. It doesn't help that soldiers there subsist on carry-out
> food because the hospital cafeteria is such a hike on cold nights. They make do
> with microwaves and hot plates.
>
> Army officials say they "started an aggressive campaign to deal with the mice
> infestation" last October and that the problem is now at a "manageable level."
> They also say they will "review all outstanding work orders" in the next 30
> days.
>
> Soldiers discharged from the psychiatric ward are often assigned to Building 18.
> Buses and ambulances blare all night. While injured soldiers pull guard duty in
> the foyer, a broken garage door allows unmonitored entry from the rear.
> Struggling with schizophrenia, PTSD, paranoid delusional disorder and traumatic
> brain injury, soldiers feel especially vulnerable in that setting, just outside
> the post gates, on a street where drug dealers work the corner at night.
>
> "I've been close to mortars. I've held my own pretty good," said Spec. George
> Romero, 25, who came back from Iraq with a psychological disorder. "But here . .
> . I think it has affected my ability to get over it . . . dealing with potential
> threats every day."
>
> After Spec. Jeremy Duncan, 30, got out of the hospital and was assigned to
> Building 18, he had to navigate across the traffic of Georgia Avenue for
> appointments. Even after knee surgery, he had to limp back and forth on crutches
> and in pain. Over time, black mold invaded his room.
>
> But Duncan would rather suffer with the mold than move to another room and share
> his convalescence in tight quarters with a wounded stranger. "I have mold on the
> walls, a hole in the shower ceiling, but . . . I don't want someone waking me up
> coming in."
>
> Wilson, the clinical social worker at Walter Reed, was part of a staff team that
> recognized Building 18's toll on the wounded. He mapped out a plan and, in
> September, was given a $30,000 grant from the Commander's Initiative Account for
> improvements. He ordered some equipment, including a pool table and air hockey
> table, which have not yet arrived. A Psychiatry Department functionary held up
> the rest of the money because she feared that buying a lot of recreational
> equipment close to Christmas would trigger an audit, Wilson said.
>
> In January, Wilson was told that the funds were no longer available and that he
> would have to submit a new request. "It's absurd," he said. "Seven months of
> work down the drain. I have nothing to show for this project. It's a great
> example of what we're up against."
>
> A pool table and two flat-screen TVs were eventually donated from elsewhere.
>
> But Wilson had had enough. Three weeks ago he turned in his resignation. "It's
> too difficult to get anything done with this broken-down bureaucracy," he said.
>
> At town hall meetings, the soldiers of Building 18 keep pushing commanders to
> improve conditions. But some things have gotten worse. In December, a
> contracting dispute held up building repairs.
>
> "I hate it," said Romero, who stays in his room all day. "There are ****roaches.
> The elevator doesn't work. The garage door doesn't work. Sometimes there's no
> heat, no water. . . . I told my platoon sergeant I want to leave. I told the
> town hall meeting. I talked to the doctors and medical staff. They just said you
> kind of got to get used to the outside world. . . . My platoon sergeant said,
> 'Suck it up!' "
>
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/17/AR200...
>
> Hey Republicans, got your Intelligent Design flu shot yet?


This is our GOP government at work. Take kids from small towns, ship
them off to a police action in Iraq, get them shot and horribly
wounded, then stick them in a rat hole you wouldn't Osama yo mama in.

And Bushbots, please don't try to tell me that this is "liberal" media
at work.
 
On Feb 20, 3:05 pm, Liman Jig Tacker <LimanTac...@aol.com> wrote:
> Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration At Army's Top Medical Facility
>
> By Dana Priest and Anne Hull
> Washington Post Staff Writers
> Sunday, February 18, 2007; 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 ****roaches, 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.
>
> While the hospital is a place of scrubbed-down order and daily miracles, with
> medical advances saving more soldiers than ever, the outpatients in the Other
> Walter Reed encounter a messy bureaucratic battlefield nearly as chaotic as the
> real battlefields they faced overseas.
>
> On the worst days, soldiers say they feel like they are living a chapter of
> "Catch-22." The wounded manage other wounded. Soldiers dealing with
> psychological disorders of their own have been put in charge of others at risk
> of suicide.
>
> Disengaged clerks, unqualified platoon sergeants and overworked case managers
> fumble with simple needs: feeding soldiers' families who are close to poverty,
> replacing a uniform ripped off by medics in the desert sand or helping a
> brain-damaged soldier remember his next appointment.
>
> "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."
>
> Soldiers, family members, volunteers and caregivers who have tried to fix the
> system say each mishap seems trivial by itself, but the cumulative effect wears
> down the spirits of the wounded and can stall their recovery.
>
> "It creates resentment and disenfranchisement," said Joe Wilson, a clinical
> social worker at Walter Reed. "These soldiers will withdraw and stay in their
> rooms. They will actively avoid the very treatment and services that are meant
> to be helpful."
>
> Danny Soto, a national service officer for Disabled American Veterans who helps
> dozens of wounded service members each week at Walter Reed, said soldiers "get
> awesome medical care and their lives are being saved," but, "Then they get into
> the administrative part of it and they are like, 'You saved me for what?' The
> soldiers feel like they are not getting proper respect. This leads to anger."
>
> This world is invisible to outsiders. Walter Reed occasionally showcases the
> heroism of these wounded soldiers and emphasizes that all is well under the
> circumstances. President Bush, former defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and
> members of Congress have promised the best care during their regular visits to
> the hospital's spit-polished amputee unit, Ward 57.
>
> "We owe them all we can give them," Bush said during his last visit, a few days
> before Christmas. "Not only for when they're in harm's way, but when they come
> home to help them adjust if they have wounds, or help them adjust after their
> time in service."
>
> Along with the government promises, the American public, determined not to
> repeat the divisive Vietnam experience, has embraced the soldiers even as the
> war grows more controversial at home. Walter Reed is awash in the generosity of
> volunteers, businesses and celebrities who donate money, plane tickets,
> telephone cards and steak dinners.
>
> Yet at a deeper level, the soldiers say they feel alone and frustrated.
> Seventy-five percent of the troops polled by Walter Reed last March said their
> experience was "stressful." Suicide attempts and unintentional overdoses from
> prescription drugs and alcohol, which is sold on post, are part of the narrative
> here.
>
> Vera Heron spent 15 frustrating months living on post to help care for her son.
> "It just absolutely took forever to get anything done," Heron said. "They do the
> paperwork, they lose the paperwork. Then they have to redo the paperwork. You
> are talking about guys and girls whose lives are disrupted for the rest of their
> lives, and they don't put any priority on it."
>
> Family members who speak only Spanish have had to rely on Salvadoran
> housekeepers, a Cuban bus driver, the Panamanian bartender and a Mexican floor
> cleaner for help. Walter Reed maintains a list of bilingual staffers, but they
> are rarely called on, according to soldiers and families and Walter Reed staff
> members.
>
> Evis Morales's severely wounded son was transferred to the National Naval
> Medical Center in Bethesda for surgery shortly after she arrived at Walter Reed.
> She had checked into her government-paid room on post, but she slept in the
> lobby of the Bethesda hospital for two weeks because no one told her there is a
> free shuttle between the two facilities. "They just let me off the bus and said
> 'Bye-bye,' " recalled Morales, a Puerto Rico resident.
>
> Morales found help after she ran out of money, when she called a hotline number
> and a Spanish-speaking operator happened to answer.
>
> "If they can have Spanish-speaking recruits to convince my son to go into the
> Army, why can't they have Spanish-speaking translators when he's injured?"
> Morales asked. "It's so confusing, so disorienting."
>
> Soldiers, wives, mothers, social workers and the heads of volunteer
> organizations have complained repeatedly to the military command about what one
> called "The Handbook No One Gets" that would explain life as an outpatient. Most
> soldiers polled in the March survey said they got their information from
> friends. Only 12 percent said any Army literature had been helpful.
>
> "They've been behind from Day One," said Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), who
> headed the House Government Reform Committee, which investigated problems at
> Walter Reed and other Army facilities. "Even the stuff they've fixed has only
> been patched."
>
> Among the public, Davis said, "there's vast appreciation for soldiers, but
> there's a lack of focus on what happens to them" when they return. "It's awful."
>
> 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."
>
> Acknowledging the problems with outpatient care, Weightman said Walter Reed has
> taken steps over the past year to improve conditions for the outpatient army,
> which at its peak in summer 2005 numbered nearly 900, not to mention the
> hundreds of family members who come to care for them. One platoon sergeant used
> to be in charge of 125 patients; now each one manages 30. Platoon sergeants with
> psychological problems are more carefully screened. And officials have increased
> the numbers of case managers and patient advocates to help with the complex
> disability benefit process, which Weightman called "one of the biggest sources
> of delay."
>
> And to help steer the wounded and their families through the complicated
> bureaucracy, Weightman said, Walter Reed has recently begun holding twice-weekly
> informational meetings. "We felt we were pushing information out before, but the
> reality is, it was overwhelming," he said. "Is it fail-proof? No. But we've put
> more resources on it."
>
> He said a 21,500-troop increase in Iraq has Walter Reed bracing for "potentially
> a lot more" casualties.
>
> Bureaucratic Battles
>
> The best known of the Army's medical centers, Walter Reed opened in 1909 with 10
> patients. It has treated the wounded from every war since, and nearly one of
> every four service members injured in Iraq and Afghanistan.
>
> The outpatients are assigned to one of five buildings attached to the post, ...
>
> read more
 
On Tue, 20 Feb 2007 21:05:56 GMT, Liman Jig Tacker
<LimanTacker@aol.com> puked:

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


Expect to see more of this as the Democrats cut military funding...
--
lab~rat >:)
Do you want polite or do you want sincere?
 
"lab~rat >:)" <chase@cheeze.net> wrote in message
news:6jomt2t30ndh341icej68mb12invibh6m4@4ax.com...
> On Tue, 20 Feb 2007 21:05:56 GMT, Liman Jig Tacker
> <LimanTacker@aol.com> puked:
>
>>Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration At Army's Top Medical Facility

>
> Expect to see more of this as the Democrats cut military funding...


Pardon? Have you seen Bush's budget? Once again it cuts veteran benefits.

> --
> lab~rat >:)
> Do you want polite or do you want sincere?
 
On Wed, 21 Feb 2007 12:40:38 GMT, "lab~rat >:)" <chase@cheeze.net> wrote:

>On Tue, 20 Feb 2007 21:05:56 GMT, Liman Jig Tacker
><LimanTacker@aol.com> puked:
>
>>Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration At Army's Top Medical Facility

>
>Expect to see more of this as the Democrats cut military funding...


Under the Democrats there will be no wounded soldiers from Iraq and the soldiers
with existing problems will be taken care of.

Unfortunately for the Republicans the richest 2% will have to start paying their
fare share.


Those who refuse to learn from history are elected to the US Presidency
by dim wit Republicans.
George "Santayana" Bush
 
On Thu, 22 Feb 2007 03:09:10 GMT, Liman Jig Tacker
<LimanTacker@aol.com> puked:

>On Wed, 21 Feb 2007 12:40:38 GMT, "lab~rat >:)" <chase@cheeze.net> wrote:
>
>>On Tue, 20 Feb 2007 21:05:56 GMT, Liman Jig Tacker
>><LimanTacker@aol.com> puked:
>>
>>>Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration At Army's Top Medical Facility

>>
>>Expect to see more of this as the Democrats cut military funding...

>
>Under the Democrats there will be no wounded soldiers from Iraq and the soldiers
>with existing problems will be taken care of.


Yeah, only wounded civilians from terrorist attacks. Idiot.

>
>Unfortunately for the Republicans the richest 2% will have to start paying their
>fare share.
>
>
>Those who refuse to learn from history are elected to the US Presidency
>by dim wit Republicans.
> George "Santayana" Bush


--
lab~rat >:)
Do you want polite or do you want sincere?
 
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