WaPo back on the Walter Reed kick

I guess the Washington Post has run out of things to bash the Administration with, so they’re back on their Walter Reed/Army bashing this week;

At Walter Reed, Care for Soldiers Struggling With War’s Mental Trauma Is Undermined by Doctor Shortages and Unfocused Methods

By Anne Hull and Dana Priest

Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, June 18, 2007; Page A01 

Yeah, I’m going to admit that the Army does alot of things badly – mostly administrative stuff and the way the Army treats soldiers is pretty bad, too. But, ya know, it’s all a part of being in the Army – it’s a big bureaucracy run by kids right out of high school. I hate it when civilians try to apply their standards to military life – just like I’m sure Hull and Priest would hate it if I came over to their respective houses with a white glove and applied my standards to their lives.

I know their whole point is that the President went to war before he had enough psychiatrists on staff at Walter Reed – just like he rushed to war before they’d cleaned up some of the transient quarters on WRAMC, too. But buried way down in the middle of the article is this;

One of the country’s best PTSD programs is located at Walter Reed, but because of a bureaucratic divide it is not accessible to most patients. The Deployment Health Clinical Center, run by the Department of Defense and separate from the Army’s services, offers a three-week program of customized treatment. Individual exposure therapy and fewer medications are favored. Deployment Health can see only about 65 patients a year but is the envy of many in the Army. “They need to clone that program,” said Col. Charles W. Hoge, chief of psychiatry and behavior services at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.

Instead, Deployment Health was forced to give up its newly renovated quarters in March and was placed in temporary space one-third the size to make room for a soldier and family assistance center. The move came after a series of articles in The Post detailed the neglect of wounded outpatients at Walter Reed. Therapy sessions are now being held in Building T-2, a rundown former computer center, until new space becomes available.

In the Army we all know what Buildings with “T” in front of their number means – a corregated steel barn the Army throws up while it’s building another one. There is construction going on WRAMC – it’s been going on since before the war. I didn’t see that mentioned in the Walter Reed story.

Neither did I find a reference to the Washington Post’s Walter Reed story I wrote on back in April;

A review panel’s recommendation that the Pentagon accelerate the expansion of the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda drew a wary reaction yesterday from local officials and neighbors concerned about traffic problems.

The Pentagon’s Independent Review Group, which is examining flaws in outpatient care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, released a draft report Wednesday recommending that the Army hospital be closed as soon as possible and replaced by a facility to be built on the Bethesda campus.

The Pentagon recommended speeding up the process of building the new Walter Reed facilities at Bethesda to overcome some of the problems at the cramped old facilities on Georgia Avenue in the District – but my dork-ass, elitist, pot-smoking, punk Congressman Chrissy VonHollen is blocking it because residents in the flashy, trendy Bethesda are worried about traffic (there’s a subway that runs right through the area, but why buy a Mercedes if you can’t park it in traffic on Wisconsin Avenue five days every week).

VonHollen wasn’t alone, by the way. Jimmy Moran sobered up long enough to become somewhat coherent and gurgled out;

But some members of Congress, including Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), insist that Walter Reed be kept open. “What you’re doing is changing horses in the middle of the stream at a time when soldiers need the best medical care,” Moran said yesterday.

So which is it, Moran? Are they going to get the best medical care in the cramped Georgia Avenue Walter Reed or at the brand-spanking new facility in Bethesda – 12 miles away. Are you trying to say we can’t build the new hospital until the war ends? Do you even know what you’re saying?

You’ll notice the Bethesda story is on page three and two months old. That’s how worried the Post is about our troops when alleviating some of their problems involves inconveniencing some Democrats in Bethesda with more traffic and its blocked by a Democrat punk-ass, dork Congressman Chrissy VonHollen.

Maybe Hull and Priest will have a little more credibility on the subject when they tell me what they’ve done to help the Pentagon build the new Bethesda facilities.

Oh, and all ya’all bloggers ain’t no damn better – there’s 34 links already to today’s WaPo hit piece and only six links to the story about punkass, sissy Chrissy VanHollen blocking the new facilities. Before ya’all go off on how the Army treats people, have all of the facts.  

Category: Media, Politics, Society, Walter Reed