Just watched one of the most sickening, infuriating reports ever on ABC (transcript here). ABC's Bob Woodruff reported on a great American soldier who ended up trying to kill himself while serving in Iraq. His duty in Iraq seriously messed with his head, he tried to seek help, didn't really get it, and then ended up in that fateful building 17 at Walter Reed - the one that the Washington Post reported on a few months ago. Well, the military then ignored the guy at Walter Reed until he hung himself - and even then, they didn't find him until two days later, and only after his parents BEGGED someone to go to his room and check on him.
Oh, and by the way, I did a Google search on the soldier's name, James Coons, and Republican Congressman Sam Johnson (the guy who thinks we would have won in Vietnam had we'd only stayed longer and sent more troops). The results? Zero. It seems Mr. Johnson hasn't had anything to say about this abandoned American soldier either.
The nationwide review, ordered by Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson, reported mice at the VA Medical Center in Providence, recurring reports of flies at an outpatient clinic in Hyannis, and mismatched, stained, and broken furniture in Manchester, N.H.
VA officials yesterday described the problems as normal concerns for aging buildings, some of which are more than 75 years old. But Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, said the results of the review were a sign of bureaucratic neglect of the nation's veterans.
And of course, we have good reason to trust the VA team.
The review contained "no surprises for us," said James W. Burrows, spokesman for the VA Medical Center in Providence. Most of the problems, he continued, "were routine maintenance kinds of things from a building that's approaching 60 years old."
The mice, he said, were spotted in administrative offices and have not been seen recently.
"That's not anything new," Burrows said of the mice. "It's not uncommon to have field mice come in, especially in the winter months. We immediately brought in a pest control service."
The bugs, he said, were flies that had become a problem at the Hyannis outpatient clinic, which the Providence VA center operates.
"We continue to work with the landlord on that," said Burrows, who added that the VA is seeking a larger space for its Cape Cod clinic.
All routine conditions and clearly nothing to be alarmed over.
In Congresswoman Jean Schmidt's world, all those wounded soldiers at Walter Reed must have been lying. And, Dana Priest and Anne Hull from the Washington Post (who will probably win awards for their reporting) were just causing trouble. Schmidt has a different story to tell about Walter Reed:
Rep. Jean Schmidt wrote in her weekly column sent out to reporters on Monday that stories about horrible conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center were "overblown."
Schmidt, a Clermont County Republican, decided to take "several hours" to travel to the hospital in Washington, D.C., to see the situation "first hand."
Her conclusion?
"I found the situation at Walter Reed to be overblown by both politicians and the media."
She is a typical Republican who does not support the troops. She really is despicable.
More of the same from the new acting- Army Surgeon General, Gale Pollock, who is replacing Kevin "Urine Man" Kiley (why Urine Man? read this). Just last week, she blamed the media for the Walter Reed scandal - you see, it really isn't that bad at all. The Washington Post has Pollock's e-mail, written just FOUR DAYS ago, that blasts the Washington Post for covering the story of the poor treatment received by wounded soldiers. Now, she's in charge of caring for those same troops.
Here's a snippet from today's Washington Post:
Army officials quickly named a temporary replacement for Kiley -- his current deputy, Maj. Gen. Gale S. Pollock. She will serve until an advisory board recommends a new surgeon general.
Pollock, in an e-mail sent to colleagues and staff in the Army Medical Command on Friday, had also sought to minimize reports about conditions at Walter Reed and attacked the media's handling of the issue.
"I know everyone is extremely pained and angry about the media assaults on Walter Reed and our senior leaders," Pollock wrote in an e-mail obtained by The Washington Post. She added that she "articulated our displeasure at the misinformation about the quality of care" to a Post reporter after a congressional hearing last week but also acknowledged that she believes the stories could create momentum for changes that would better serve the Army.
She also wrote: "I know that your families and loved ones are affected by this event as well -- please reassure them that the media makes money on negative stories not by articulating the positive in life -- though that is something I will never understand."
Something we will never understand is how no one in the leadership of the Army, the Pentagon, or their commander in chief takes any responsibility for the care of our wounded and maimed soldiers. They still don't get it. Perhaps if the chairman of the Joint Chiefs spent less time worrying about how "immoral" gays are, and more time worrying about the war in Iraq and the well-being of his own troops, we wouldn't be in the grand mess we're in.
Urine (wo)Man II needs to be fired, not just from her new job as acting Army Surgeon General, but from the Army. There should be zero tolerance in the US military for anyone who would belittle the suffering of our injured and maimed troops.
The US Army Surgeon General, Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley, the man who reportedly let an injured soldier at Walter Reed sleep in his own urine rather than help him, has finally resigned. About time. Now let's see if he's getting full retirement benefits and an honorable discharge after abusing so many of our injured and maimed soldiers.
The new Secretary of the Army, the current Secretary of Defense, and our glorious commander in chief would like us to believe that they now "get" the Walter Reed scandal. Okay. Then why is the "doctor" who oversaw the abuses at Walter Reed for two years, and did little about it - the guy who let one of our wounded soldiers sleep in their own urine even though he was begged to do something about it by a GOP congressman's wife - our favorite Lieutenant General Kevin C. Kiley, M.D., still the Army's Surgeon General?
Why is Urine Man still the Army Surgeon General? This guy is not just a doctor, he's the Army's top doctor, still, even though we know now that under his "care" our troops, his patients, were abused for years.
In the real world, this man would be facing the potential loss of his medical license. In the Bush administration, he gets to be the top doctor of the entire Army during war time. Bush still doesn't get it.
Think Progress first reported on the elaborate ceremony for Army Secretary Francis Harvey who was fired over the abhorrent treatment received by wounded soldiers at Walter Reed. Maybe the Defense Department could have used the money they wasted on this extravaganza for something more constructive. Just look at all the military personnel participating in this thing. They sure get rewarded for incompetence in the Bush Administration.
CAPTION/CREDIT: Former U.S. Secretary of the Army General Francis Harvey reviews an honor guard during a farewell ceremony for him at Fort Myer in Arlington, Virginia March 9, 2007. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque (UNITED STATES)
They knew, but didn't want to embarrass the Army. Yeah, what's 600,000 disability claims not yet responded to, soldiers sleeping in their own urine, mold, cockroaches and asbestos compared to embarrassing the Army.
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.
Young and Thomas M. Davis III, R-Va., the former chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, both acknowledged in interviews that they were aware of patient care problems at Walter Reed long before The Washington Post exposed them two weeks ago.
And get this: The Republican in charge of all military funding in the House didn't want to weild his influence to fix the problems at Walter Reed and across the entire military hospital system because he discovered the problems during his time off, and he didn't want to mix business with pleasure. I'm not kidding.
“What else do you want me to do? I am not going to go into a hospital and push my way into a medical situation,” Young said after the hearing.
Young said he “separates my life as a member of Congress and the work I do on a volunteer basis,” visiting military hospitals with his wife almost every week.
Young said he used his role as an appropriator to push to fund a new lab at Walter Reed and a new phone system at Fort Carson so patients could more easily make appointments.
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.
Wow, a new lab and a new phone system. I'm sure that really helped the guys sleeping in their own urine while you and your wife did practically nothing to stop it.
Yeah, if I were Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., the former GOP House Veterans Affairs Committee chair in charge of making sure that Walter Reed and the rest of our military hospitals didn't abuse our soldiers - and they DID abuse our wounded troops under Buyer's non-watch - I too would be making light of the scandal at the expense of our troops. Especially if I were the guy who replaced the previous committee chair in a coup, all because the previous guy was too much of an advocate for the troops.
This GOP America-hater should be be forced to spend a month at Walter Reed, in a wheelchair, with the mold, the cockroaches, the asbestos, the 3rd degree burn showers, sleeping in his own urine - then see how political he thinks our maimed soldiers are being complaining about what the Republicans have done to them. Buyer knew that Walter Reed and our military hospitals didn't have enough money, but he covered for George Bush and screwed our soldiers, all for politics. The thought that he is still to this day playing politics with our soldiers' lives is sickening.
CNN, MSNBC and C-SPAN are covering the hearings over at Walter Reed. Fox is even giving some coverage. We're getting some real testimony about just how much the Bush Administration "supports the troops" -- or doesn't.
Ray Oliva went into the spare bedroom in his home in Kelseyville, Calif., to wrestle with his feelings. He didn't know a single soldier at Walter Reed, but he felt he knew them all. He worried about the wounded who were entering the world of military health care, which he knew all too well. His own VA hospital in Livermore was a mess. The gown he wore was torn. The wheelchairs were old and broken.
"It is just not Walter Reed," Oliva slowly tapped out on his keyboard at 4:23 in the afternoon on Friday. "The VA hospitals are not good either except for the staff who work so hard. It brings tears to my eyes when I see my brothers and sisters having to deal with these conditions. I am 70 years old, some say older than dirt but when I am with my brothers and sisters we become one and are made whole again."
Oliva is but one quaking voice in a vast outpouring of accounts filled with emotion and anger about the mistreatment of wounded outpatients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Stories of neglect and substandard care have flooded in from soldiers, their family members, veterans, doctors and nurses working inside the system. They describe depressing living conditions for outpatients at other military bases around the country, from Fort Lewis in Washington state to Fort Dix in New Jersey. They tell stories -- their own versions, not verified -- of callous responses to combat stress and a system ill equipped to handle another generation of psychologically scarred vets.
The official reaction to the revelations at Walter Reed has been swift, and it has exposed the potential political costs of ignoring Oliva's 24.3 million comrades -- America's veterans -- many of whom are among the last standing supporters of the Iraq war. In just two weeks, the Army secretary has been fired, a two-star general relieved of command and two special commissions appointed; congressional subcommittees are lining up for hearings, the first today at Walter Reed; and the president, in his weekly radio address, redoubled promises to do right by the all-volunteer force, 1.5 million of whom have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But much deeper has been the reaction outside Washington, including from many of the 600,000 new veterans who left the service after Iraq and Afghanistan. Wrenching questions have dominated blogs, talk shows, editorial cartoons, VFW spaghetti suppers and the solitary late nights of soldiers and former soldiers who fire off e-mails to reporters, members of Congress and the White House -- looking, finally, for attention and solutions.
And read this:
Sandy Karen was horrified when her 21-year-old son was discharged from the Naval Medical Center in San Diego a few months ago and told to report to the outpatient barracks, only to find the room swarming with fruit flies, trash overflowing and a syringe on the table. "The staff sergeant says, 'Here are your linens' to my son, who can't even stand up," said Karen, of Brookeville, Md. "This kid has an open wound, and I'm going to put him in a room with fruit flies?" She took her son to a hotel instead.
And this:
Capt. Leslie Haines was sent to Fort Knox in Kentucky for treatment in 2004 after being flown out of Iraq. "The living conditions were the worst I'd ever seen for soldiers," he said. "Paint peeling, mold, windows that didn't work. I went to the hospital chaplain to get them to issue blankets and linens. There were no nurses. You had wounded and injured leading the troops."
....From Fort Campbell in Kentucky: "There were yellow signs on the door stating our barracks had asbestos."
And this:
At the sprawling James J. Peters VA Medical Center in the Bronx, N.Y., Spec. Roberto Reyes Jr. lies nearly immobile and unable to talk. Once a strapping member of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry, Reyes got too close to an improvised explosive device in Iraq and was sent to Walter Reed, where doctors did all they could before shipping him to the VA for the remainder of his life. A cloudy bag of urine hangs from his wheelchair. His mother and his aunt are constant bedside companions; Reyes, 25, likes for them to get two inches from his face, so he can pull on their noses with the few fingers he can still control.
Maria Mendez, his aunt, complained about the hospital staff. "They fight over who's going to have to give him a bath -- in front of him!" she said. Reyes suffered third-degree burns on his leg when a nurse left him in a shower unattended. He was unable to move himself away from the scalding water. His aunt found out only later, when she saw the burns.
HUME: I think it tells you a lot about the effect of the last election and the political atmosphere in Washington. This is an administration which is known or had been known for sticking by people even when they were embattled. The idea that conditions at Walter Reed hospital, a hospital that is on its way out of business, had deteriorated, that’s probably one of the reasons they wanted to put it out of business. This is unfortunate. It looks terrible, which is the problem. The problem is that it looks as if this administration, which has sent troops into harm’s way, is now neglecting them when they’re injured and need care and help. But make no mistake about it, this was a — there was a potential political firestorm on Capitol Hill began to brew about this. The administration did what it did to try to get it over with, and it may well have succeeded.
Then NPR's Mara Liasson responded to Hume:
“I think, you know, to say it looks bad, it also is bad. Those pictures were horrible. These are people — nobody who is being treated for any kind of injury should have to live in that condition, let alone people who just fought in a war for our country.”
How can the Washington Post print this article and not note the hypocrisy? Bush was giving a political speech about supporting the troops while the Army is enmeshed in a major scandal for not taking care of wounded troops. Bush talks about support for the troops. But talk is very, very cheap from George Bush:
Speaking to a dinner crowd at the century-old Seelbach Hilton Louisville Hotel, Bush defended his decision to send more troops to Iraq. He also criticized those in Congress who oppose the plan, saying, "They have a solemn responsibility to support those who wear the uniform of the United States."
George Bush has had a solemn responsibility to support those who wear the uniform of the United States. He hasn't. And, he can't get away with it.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates just announced that the Secretary of the Army, Francis Harvey, has resigned in the wake of the growing Walter Reed scandal. Great. So when is the guy going to be punished who actually oversaw Walter Reed while the most egregious abuses were taking place? That would be Lt. Gen. Kevin "Urine Man" Kiley, the guy who oversaw the mess, the who reportedly let a soldier sleep in his own urine, and the guy who, incredibly, has now been appointed AGAIN to oversee Walter Reed. This man isn't fit to run Walter Reed, let alone be Army Surgeon General. How long does Urine Man get to keep his cushy jobs?
UPDATE: CNN just reported that Urine Man has been replaced. Still looking for confirmation online.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Harvey had resigned. But senior defense officials speaking on condition of anonymity said Gates had asked Harvey to leave. Gates was displeased that Harvey, after firing Maj. Gen. George Weightman as the head of Walter Reed, chose to name as Weightman's temporary replacement another general whose role in the controversy was still in question.
"I am disappointed that some in the Army have not adequately appreciated the seriousness of the situation pertaining to outpatient care at Walter Reed," Gates said in the Pentagon briefing room. He took no questions from reporters.
Chairman Henry A. Waxman and Subcommittee Chairman John Tierney sent a letter to Major General George W. Weightman, former Commander of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, regarding the privatization of support services at Walter Reed and its impact on the conditions at Walter Reed. In addition, the Committee is issuing a subpoena to compel Major General Weightman to appear before the Committee on Monday, March 5.
Chairwoman of the House Rules Committee, Louise Slaughter (D-NY), has just written to the Secretary of Defense calling on him to fire the temporary head of Walter Reed, Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley. Kiley headed Walter Reed for two years while our injured veterans suffered, with his knowledge, and he is the man who GOP Congressman Bill Young's wife says she told about a soldier sleeping in his own urine - Kiley reportedly didn't do a thing about it.
General Kiley, the man who reportedly left an injured American soldier to sleep in his own urine is now BACK in charge at Walter Reed, after presiding over all the worst abuses at Walter Reed for two years. Why does Urine Man have any job in the military, let alone back at the helm of Walter Reed? More from the Post.
We are glad that the Army is finally taking the issue of outpatient care seriously enough to effectively end the career of a major general for presiding over the disgraceful condition of Building 18. But the evidence compiled so far suggests that Gen. Kiley has been more complicit in the scandalous neglect of Walter Reed's outpatient facilities for longer than Gen. Weightman has been. It also indicates that the Army's reshuffle is really about projecting the appearance of accountability, not punishing those most responsible.
TAKE ACTION
Folks, please call and email your Senators and House members and ask them to get involved and publicly speak out on this horrible issue. The abuses of our vets have gone on too long at Walter Reed, and now they're yet again being ignored. Some members of Congress like Nancy Pelosi, Louise Slaughter, Kendrick Meek, Barack Obama, and Claire McCaskill have spoken out, and Jack Murtha and John Tierney are each holding hearings. But far too many members of Congress haven't said or done squat.
Where is the House Veterans Affairs Committee? Not a word about this scandal on their Web site home page. In the Senate, the head of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, Daniel Akaka (D-HI), issued a statement expressing concern over the Walter Reed abuses, and saying that he will be holding hearings in March on this issue and others. That's great. But it would be nice to hear from the chairman about what he plans to do right now about Mr. Kiley.
And where are the Republican members of Congress? You remember them, the folks who claim, early and often, to care so much about our troops. Why have almost all of them, save Bill Young (R-FL) and Tom Davis (R-VA), been so silent on this matter? And before you give Young and Davis a pass, they were in CHARGE of oversight on this matter while the Republicans controlled congress. Where were they while our soldiers were sleeping in their own urine? Why did Congressman Young go silent for two years after finding out about these atrocities?
Call your members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, and tell them that the wife of Congressman Bill Young (R-FL) says Lt. General Kevin Kiley, who is back heading Walter Reed, let an injured American soldier sleep in his own urine. Kiley needs to be fired as head of Walter Reed, and fired from the Army as well (incredibly, he's still the Army's Surgeon General!). We need our representatives in Congress to all speak out and make clear that the abuse of our vets is intolerable.
At the top of the blog we'll be counting the days that the US Army permits Urine Man, M.D. (aka US Army Surgeon General, Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley) to remain at the helm of Walter Reed. Why Urine Man? Read on.
