There's only one thing worse than paying poor working class folks in one country to kill poor working class folks in another country - and that's treating them like sh*t when they get back.
We used to get chocolate milk delivered to our beds. The amputees of Walter Reed Army Medical Center were accustomed to first-class service as a matter of hospital policy. "The Ritz-Carlton is where you want to go, not Motel 6," the head nurse of Ward 57 told her staff after the Iraq war began in 2003. "That's how I want all my patients treated."But it was a courtesy that apparently stopped at the hospital's front door. According to a series in this week's Washington Post, some wounded soldiers have lived amid mice, mold and mismanagement in outpatient facilities. It was a shocking account to ordinary Americans who know of Walter Reed by its spit-shine, high-tech image, but especially to me. An embedded reporter who lost a hand in a grenade attack, I was treated at Walter Reed as an in-patient from December 16, 2003 to January 8, 2004, when I left for my home in Washington. I returned regularly to the hospital as an outpatient for 18 months, stopping often to visit friends who were living in the modern, clean Malogne House.
No doubt other reporters treated well out of fear that they'd otherwise spill the beans.
Even they grumbled about paperwork snafus and the bewildering medical retirement process. But they also enjoyed the freedom of outpatient life as well as comfortable housing and meals. Clearly problems worsened as the outpatient community exploded later in 2005. It was not until October of that year that soldiers were housed in the notorious Building 18.
Appalling.
Hopefully, it will give young Americans one more reason not to join the military. Or, if they do enlist - follow Lt. Watada's example, and not fight an illegal war based on lies.
Mice and Mold is what you'll get in return.
Submitted by qrswave on Fri, 2007-02-23 13:06
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Not surprising things like this in negligence of wounded soldiers happen.
There was over two trillion dollars missing as Rumsfeld 'admits' the day before 9-11.
And there are endless tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer expense budget requests for maintaining the occupation of Iraq and to a lesser extent continue the campaign in Afhganistan.
And yet they neglect the soldiers in care. It's like what Ron Kovic and his fellow comrades endured in the rehabilitation ward after he was struck down by spinal cord injury during the battle with the "independence-seeking commie" Vietnamese enemies.
Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld & Zionist-Neocon cabal are truly immoral warmongering thugs. They can never wash the blood off their hands.
It would be one of the best days for America when they are at the gallow for high treason.
U.S. military personnels may come to realization that Iraq war was based on lies -- it's really about geostrategic power grab for Israel and gold coin showering jackpot hits for oil, defense, construction & merc industry. Nothing about quarantining the alleged WMDs.
Blood of the Coalition soldiers and Iraqis & Afghans have been shed for the luxuries of oil reserve exploitation and appeasement of the evil Zionist puppeteers in Tel Aviv, New York and Washington.
The cabals merit annihilation. The Founding fathers would agree to this conclusion -- they must be terminated by the Patriots for the highest treason to the republic. They are degenerate amoral filth in the company of Henry Kissinger, Leo Strauss and Pentagon warhawks that enjoy real war games because it's fun to them from the safety of the posh offices they occupy.
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My blog Last Throes of US Empire