They Knew About Walter Reed

From the AP this afternoon:

Both Mr. Murtha, a Vietnam War veteran, and the committee's ranking Republican, Rep. C.W. Bill Young of Florida, have long been frequent visitors to Walter Reed and dozens of other military medical facilities. Mr. Young acknowledged yesterday that he had seen many worrisome problems during those visits, but had been reluctant to discuss them publicly because of a fear of violating troops' privacy.

Having gotten permission, he told a story:

Mr. Young told the story of a soldier who was lying in a pool of urine in a bed because the hospital didn't have enough clean sheets. When Mr. Young's wife, a regular volunteer at Walter Reed, complained, an employee snapped at her.

"This is war," the employee said. "We have a lot of casualties. We don't have enough sheets to go around."

A Pro-life Republican discovers the right to privacy - how nice. But Representative Young also shows up in this piece in Congressional Quarterly:

Senior Republicans who knew about problems at Walter Reed Army Medical Center while their party controlled Congress insist they did all they could to prod the Pentagon to fix them.

But C.W. Bill Young, R-Fla., former chairman of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, said he stopped short of going public with the hospital’s problems to avoid embarrassing the Army while it was fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He didn't want to embarrass the Army? Perhaps he should have considered the alternative more to embarrassing the Army - no more wounded American soldiers lying in pools of their own urine.

Young repeatedly places the blame on Army Surgeon-General Kevin C. Kiley. He also said he repeatedly brought the situation to the attention of the Army brass. Obviously it did wonders. Obviously he didn't do much else.

But he said he purposely opted to bring concerns about individual patients’ care privately to the attention of Walter Reed commanders, rather than wield his clout as an Appropriations subcommittee chairman.

“We did not go public with these concerns, because we did not want to undermine the confidence of the patients and their families and give the Army a black eye while fighting a war,” Young said.

This might be a wild guess, but having wounded soldiers lying in their own filth in rodent infested rooms, forcing them to work their way through a humiliating bureaucracy probably did very little to boost their confidence either. Just a wild guess.

Congressman, you could have said something. You should have said something. Doesn't cost a damn thing to pick up a phone and call someone. Three years ago.

The Democrats mentioned in the CQ article also blame the Pentagon. Here's Congressman Murtha:

Murtha focused blame for the Walter Reed scandal on the Bush administration and said the Pentagon discouraged patients from talking to lawmakers in both parties.

“My impression is that the military was constrained, even intimidated, from telling me and other congressional members about the real problems and the real needs,” Murtha said.

And so, who knew what? And why in the name of all that's good didn't they open their mouths about it?

When contacted for a reaction to the situation at Walter Reed, Congressman Jason Altmire's office told me:

The problems at Walter Reed and other military/veterans hospitals must be fixed immediately. The American people are not calling for another blue ribbon panel that will undergo a 2-year study and issue a report. We need results right now for the brave men and women who have put their lives on the line and come home needing medical care. It is outrageous that this situation was brought to light, not by elected officials, but instead it took a Washington Post expose. We need a top-to-bottom review of every military and veterans health care facility. We need to determine whether or not the conditions are substandard and if actions need to be taken to improve the quality of care. If so, let's deal with them immediately. We must fix the problem and hold people accountable, in that order.

We must.