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My View - On Walter Reed

By John Zutz

There are a couple of things that trouble me about the recent news stories about crappy conditions at the country's premier Army hospital, Walter Reed.

First, all the blathering led the general public to believe this was "news."

Certainly, mice insects and mold are bad, but focusing on Walter Reed masks the full story. Here at VVAW we like to take a wider view.

I recall shortly after the war began there were stories from Ft. Stewart, Georgia about wounded troops being warehoused in old barracks without heat, and without seeing doctors for months. Later, there were similar stories from Ft. Knox, Kentucky, Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, and Ft. Lewis, Washington. Other stories from Ft. Bragg, North Carolina and Ft. Carson, Colorado told of untreated mental health problems.

More recently, I've read of soldiers being denied physical and mental health care. Even worse, some troops diagnosed with PTSD and others physically unable to perform have been re-deployed to Iraq.

These are just instances I can recall, without even doing any research. So, this "news story" has been steadily unfolding for four years. And it's not an isolated problem – it's systemic.

The other thing that bothers me is how few reporters understand that the military hospital system, and the VA are separate entities. Sure, they do similar jobs, and they even work together occasionally, but they are not connected.

Looked at dispassionately, I can understand why the VA has problems. Their administrators have to ask for more money each year – more veterans are being created and health costs are rising everywhere – but they are employed by an administration that wants to cut taxes. So the VA ends up chronically under-funded.

The military, however, doesn't have that excuse. It seems to me they go to Congress, get what they ask for, and waste it on systems that don't work. Then they go back to Congress to get "supplemental" funding. So, the Army had plenty of money to maintain Walter Reed, they just chose to spend it elsewhere.

Oh, and let's not forget one other story. We're closing Bethesda, the premier Navy hospital, so we'll only be left with Walter Reed. If I were a Marine or a swabbie I'd be pissed.