Salon: The Pentagon's chronic neglect of Iraq vets

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/04/25/walter_reed_groups/?source=rss

The Pentagon's chronic neglect of Iraq vets

Military officials knew long ago about the failure to take care of America's war wounded at the beleaguered Walter Reed hospital.

By Mark Benjamin

April 25, 2007 | WASHINGTON -- When the Walter Reed scandal exploded in the media in February, bringing wide attention to inadequate care for veterans at the Army's flagship hospital, Defense Department officials expressed shock and claimed ignorance. Dr. William Winkenwerder Jr., the assistant defense secretary who oversees military medicine, declared at a press conference on Feb. 21: "This news caught me -- as it did many other people -- completely by surprise."

But Salon has learned that the Defense Department had been conducting monthly focus group discussions with soldiers treated at Walter Reed since before the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq had even begun, and that it continued to do so as wounded veterans of those conflicts arrived at the facility. The interviews with outpatients were set up to monitor Army healthcare and provide military officials with direct information about it.

"They were trying to find out the good and the bad and the ugly," said a former Defense Department official familiar with the DoD focus groups. "That is the good-news story. The bad-news story is they did not do anything about it."

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isn't going to be all that concerned with taking care of the troops used toward that end...in fact, to such a country, it would be far better if no living reminders were around that would continue to remind people of the lies of government.

Less treatment and more neglect - and maybe they'll die or fall so far between the cracks no one knows they exist. The quicker they die, the sooner the country can move on and forget the ugly of government lies and deception.

But then maybe I'm just jaded. I'm sure such a thought is comforting to some...That Solly, she's just jaded and without hope...cause if Solly's right, how ugly would that be?

As always, my government is welcome to prove me wrong.

So far, they haven't...

to handle these vets.

FOR EXAMPLE: They assumed that Walter Reed could handle all of the injured. They ended up emptying out some wards at Bethesda Naval and buying the extra buildings outside the WRAMC gates to make room.

Because of Rumsfeld, the military's been playing 'catch up' almost since the beginning of the war.

'Neglect' isn't the right term.

I'd like to be outraged but I and my Marine brethren have known this since at least 2003...

SUPPORT THE MISSION
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=734461&mesg_id=734461

educate, inform, remind! ;-)

to see people I know who held Clinton to task for Kosovo (timetables, why are we in a civil war, no mission, etc) and then can hold the exact opposite positions with Bush.

And reading comments from those (other sites) who have never seen war or death rabidly pushing continued involvement.

Sigh.