It seemed everyone, regardless of ideology, was stunned and outraged by revelations about U.S. war veterans, recuperating at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, living in deplorable conditions and being ignored by a callous bureaucracy. Well, not quite everyone — some already knew about it.
Top officials at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, including the Army’s surgeon general, have heard complaints about outpatient neglect from family members, veterans groups and members of Congress for more than three years.
A procession of Pentagon and Walter Reed officials expressed surprise last week about the living conditions and bureaucratic nightmares faced by wounded soldiers staying at the D.C. medical facility. But as far back as 2003, the commander of Walter Reed, Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, who is now the Army’s top medical officer, was told that soldiers who were wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan were languishing and lost on the grounds, according to interviews.
Kiley literally lived across the street from Building 18, where war wounded were “housed among mice, mold, rot and cockroaches.” Apparently, he didn’t cross the street often. Last week, Kiley insisted that the problems in Building 18 “weren’t serious and there weren’t a lot of them.” He also said they were not “emblematic of a process of Walter Reed that has abandoned soldiers and their families.”
He was, of course, terribly wrong. Kiley and various other Walter Reed officials had heard years of complaints from troops and their families. They chose not to act on them.
Joe Wilson, a clinical social worker in the department of psychiatry, briefed several colonels at Walter Reed last year, and included recommendations for improvements. His office even conducted a survey and found 75% of outpatients had problems in need of attention. He shared his findings a year ago, to no avail.
“These people knew about it,” Wilson said. “The bottom line is, people knew about it but the culture of the Army didn’t allow it to be addressed.”
Here’s a peek into the culture Wilson is referring to:
Last October, Joyce Rumsfeld, the wife of then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, was taken to Walter Reed by a friend concerned about outpatient treatment. She attended a weekly meeting, called Girls Time Out, at which wives, girlfriends and mothers of soldiers exchange stories and offer support.
According to three people who attended the gathering, Rumsfeld listened quietly. Some of the women did not know who she was. At the end of the meeting, Rumsfeld asked one of the staff members whether she thought that the soldiers her husband was meeting on his visits had been handpicked to paint a rosy picture of their time there. The answer was yes.
When Walter Reed officials found out that Rumsfeld had visited, they told the friend who brought her — a woman who had volunteered there many times — that she was no longer welcome on the grounds.
Hilzoy said, “However it happened, if people in positions of authority knew about these conditions and did not do everything in their power to change them, then they should lose their jobs. To me, it’s as simple as that.”
I couldn’t agree more. I realize that this administration has a stunningly high tolerance for incompetence — and a tendency to reward those who screw up the most — but this should be a no-brainer. Everyone responsible for neglecting those veterans needs to be held accountable.