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Friday 
02 March 2007
walter reed restored to glory
thank god something nice is finally being done for the wounded at walter reed.
in a stunning return to good times, army surgeon general lt. gen. kevin kiley is back in charge.
kiley is a surgeon general’s general, a man with years of experience with conditions at the facility. he, better than anyone except maybe the actual wounded, knows about institutional neglect and notorious fetid-ness.
kiley, in fact, lives right across the street from building 18, the condition of which parallels that of stalag 17 (exept that stalag 17 was, you know, a nazi prison camp).
it was kiley, after all, who keenly observed:
“I do not consider Building 18 to be substandard,” he said of a facility found full of “mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses” and other delights. “We needed to do a better job on some of those rooms, and those of you that got in today saw that we frankly have fixed all of those problems. They weren’t serious, and there weren’t a lot of them.”
kiley, it has been noted, has been supporting the troops in this inimitable fashion for years. he knew about conditions at walter reed since 2003, and responded to the very best of his abilities…
“I do not think that Building 8″ — he apparently meant 18 — “is emblematic of a process of Walter Reed that has abandoned soldiers and their families,” Kiley said. “I want to reset the thinking that while we have some issues here, this is not a horrific, catastrophic failure at Walter Reed.”
hell no! just as there’s no crying in baseball, nor talking to the press by the wounded, there’s no failure at walter reed. the abandoned soldiers there, and their families should get that straight right now.
general kiley is in charge once again, by god, and he’s gonna start resetting some thinking.
the broken bones will have to wait.
update:
Army secretary resigns in scandal’s wake
tsk, that’s a shame. just when things were looking up.
update on the update:
In an interview in his office shortly after the announcement, Harvey said he offered Gates his resignation because he believed the Army let the wounded soldiers down. He said the furor has depressed the staff at Walter Reed, and he wanted to prevent any others from leaving or being fired.
“We can’t have them leave,” he said. “We can’t have them be so demoralized that they leave. So I figured what the heck, if I offer my resignation that may stop all this bleeding and it was accepted.”
yes, that’s what he actually said.
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That fuck Don Rumsfeld should be charged. That shit started on his watch.
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I suspect that Lt Gen Kiley will be asked to retire very, very soon…
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I’ve seen VA hospitals since the 70’s. They’ve never been up to the standards of private hospitals (which personally aren’t that great either). This didn’t happen on Rumsfeld’s watch. But it did continue on everyone’s watch. Its time to get it resolved. Finger pointing is a useless waste of time and money. Spend that on fixing it.
Our soldiers give us their best, they deserve our best.
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let’s talk about “finger pointing” for a minute:
it’s interesting to me that the right has played a scorched-earth strategy when “discussing” perceived democratic shortcomings. but when the reverse is true, and it’s a republican issue, suddenly they don’t want to talk about “old news” or point fingers. they’re all about moving forward.
which stikes me as a lovely accountability-avoidance technique, but does nothing to prevent the same problems from occurring over and over again.
i have no idea which side of the aisle you favor, and by all means the situation needs to be fixed right fucking now.
but without some finger pointing, some assessment of responsibility, the fixes will be temporary and our soldiers will be the ones who suffer.
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Here’s a novel concept. If you are going to put the troops in harms way, you need to understand that not all of them will come back dead or well. Some will come back short a limb or worse. I can’t dispute that VA hospitals were of lower quality than normal hospitals during Clinton’s watch. But to my knowledge he didn’t do anything to increase the number of patients forced to go to said hospitals.
“Stop finger pointing”?! Darn tootin’ we need to move forward, but you move forward by having the person in power change the current status. You have to point them out, and then hope that they will move forward. Does Bush have no powers of anticipation? Is this part of what he expects from his troops? “you serve and you accomplish the mission or you die or become permanently disfigured. You’ll get taken care of sort of.”