March 8, 2007

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.

11 comments:

  1. A bit of fairness is in order here, Dave. The very first thing you quote at the start of your post notes that Rep. Murtha, along with the Repbulican congressman whom you rightfully excoriate throughout the rest of the post, has "... long been a frequent visitor" to Walter Reed. Whatever sins can be laid at the feet of Rep. Young -- and they are legion -- can also be laid at the feet of Mr. Murtha.

    But you never even discuss what Mr. Murth has or has not done in response to what he saw there, and you never suggest that he has any similar culpability.

    The Republicans truly dropped the ball here. But they apparently weren't alone in doing so.

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  2. So it turns out that our much-vaunted military actually consists of a bunch of babies, whining about, "Oooh, this widdle bed isn't comfy enough," and "Mommy, that nasty clerk was mean to me."

    So what if there's a little pee on the floor here and there? This is a hospital! What did you expect?

    Mice? Roaches? A real soldier would be grateful for the extra food!

    We have apparently coddled our soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen too much. First they complain that they don't have the right equipment. Then they don't like the extended combat tours. Then they don't like the short rotations. They should be honored to give up a limb or two for the honor of killing more terrorists...terrorists who would come over here and blow up office buildings in Oklahoma City if we didn't have them pinned down in Iraq...terrorists who would come over here and take our women and our jobs and spread their filthy religion.

    Also, remember that many of these pansies aren't even qualified to fight any more. That's right, they have outlived their usefulness just like Scooter Libby. Why should we care about giving them bandaids for every hangnail?

    Right, XRanger?

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  3. I was wondering where you were this week.

    Ya know, you seem to have this mental picture of my position on everything, and refuse to read my various comments.

    I have attempted to explain various aspects of military life, right or wrong, without going off on tangents. Your latest post describes every lib talking point since the war in Iraq started. They're getting pretty worn out.

    I am not sure why you feel I think the lack of quality care in our military hosipitals is acceptable. I have always used words like despicable and horrible to describe this.

    I also tried to put forth my position that the after care for our vets would probably be better served by out-sourcing to the private sector. These facilities are cutting-edge and, I imagine, do not have patients sitting in their own filth.

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  4. Your latest post describes every lib talking point since the war in Iraq started.

    Yes, liberals (and occasionally even Democrats) keep pointing out the corruption, incompetence, and politicization of this administration and Bush's abuse of our military as a tool of his greed, ideology, and personality defects. You seem to have a problem with that.

    I was wondering where you were this week.

    I've been around. We haven't had the pleasure of hearing much cheerleading from your end, though.

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  5. Nothing to cheer about.

    I will not defend Libby: perjury is a crime, and he was found guilty. No spin required.

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  6. Actually, it was the grand and glorious Global War on Terrorism that I'm used to hearing you cheer about.

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  7. Cheering for a war was also not my intent.

    As I have posted before, I wish we were not embroiled in Iraq, but we are. It is with grim determination that we must continue for the short future.

    I say short future because it cannot go on forever; and we must give this one last push in an effort to extricate ourselves.

    Noone knows what the future will bring; we merely feel it has a grand capacity of devastation for us if we leave prematurely.

    Having said that, my position is that we go in with Petreas' (sic) plan to clear, hold and build. If the Iraqis will not coopoerate, god help us all.

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  8. You're not gonna make me dig up a bunch of comments you made in support of this war, are you, x?

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  9. Nah, not necessary. I use the Hillary Clinton, explanation: I absolutely supported the reasons to go to war. However, hindsight is always 20-20 and, with no WMD, we entered prematurely.

    Once we broke it, we owned it, and we cannot leave it as a terrirst haven. But, it has dragged on too long. Why? Hindsight again.

    It is imperative that we support this last, best, push towards Iraqi self-government.

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  10. I've lost count. Is this the 10th Last Best Push or the 11th?

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  11. On second thought, never mind that last question of mine. Another thousand or two dead American soldiers, no big deal. At least the Bushies are giving them the very, very best care when they ship them home wounded.

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