The Hotel Aftermath: Inside Walter Reed

Washington Post reporters Anne Hull and Dana Priest spent hundreds of hours inside Walter Reed Army Medical Center talking to wounded Iraq vets and their families.

Their article on residents Mologne House, a long-term convalescent hotel on the grounds of Walter Reed is one of the most moving and richly detailed accounts of the long term toll of the Iraq war for American servicemen. Michel du Cille's photographs of life at Walter Reed are equally powerful.

The reporters were able to get around the Walter Reed image machine and report their story without the hospital's knowledge or permission, but everyone quoted in the article consented to be interviewed.

One amputee was denied a photo op with President Bush because he said he wanted to wear shorts to the summer ceremony, which would have exposed his prosthesis to photographers:

Perks and stardom do not come to every amputee. Sgt. David Thomas, a gunner with the Tennessee National Guard, spent his first three months at Walter Reed with no decent clothes; medics in Samarra had cut off his uniform. Heavily drugged, missing one leg and suffering from traumatic brain injury, David, 42, was finally told by a physical therapist to go to the Red Cross office, where he was given a T-shirt and sweat pants. He was awarded a Purple Heart but had no underwear.

David tangled with Walter Reed's image machine when he wanted to attend a ceremony for a fellow amputee, a Mexican national who was being granted U.S. citizenship by President Bush. A case worker quizzed him about what he would wear. It was summer, so David said shorts. The case manager said the media would be there and shorts were not advisable because the amputees would be seated in the front row.

" 'Are you telling me that I can't go to the ceremony 'cause I'm an amputee?' " David recalled asking. "She said, 'No, I'm saying you need to wear pants.' "

David told the case worker, "I'm not ashamed of what I did, and y'all shouldn't be neither." When the guest list came out for the ceremony, his name was not on it. [WaPo]

Via Think Progress.

Comments

[voxpop]

You always talk about things the closest to my heart.
We have money for a fricking marble monument park which is actually kinda sickening a bunch of heads sticking out of the ground ... http://spreadthehead.blogspot.com/2007/02/terribly-painful-juxtaposition.html
but we have no money for our maimed soldiers fighting an illegal war.
I hope he goes and wears HOT PANTS. Sickening.

[pecunium]

Want to know why I think (in my cynical self) Walter Reed got the ax? It's too visible.

I have to say that when I was there (June-August, 2003) it wasn't that bad. I got good treatment, attentive case workers, and had decent billets.

I also had a rarer condition than those with massive trauma, so my case workers weren't swamped.

When I had a crisis, they were all over it; probabaly kept me from ending up dead.

I was less happy with the conditions at Madigan (and the poor bastards at Ft. Stewart in 2003/4 were suffering, a lot).

So hearing that the system can't keep up, depresses me.

[cfrost]

BushCo has poured close to a trillion dollars into their Iraq/Afghanistan clusterfuck so far. Perhaps there just isn’t any cash left over for wounded veterans.
The dough will be found however when it comes time to fund the PR machine that will convince America that the hippy, fag liberals spat on the veterans again.

[mcmillan]

This was a incredible story to read. I was amazed at how much got cut from the version that ran in the local newspaper, even in as lefty a city as Seattle. Other than the section Lindsay quoted, a paragraph that really struck me was this:

While Mologne House has a full bar, there is not one counselor or psychologist assigned there to assist soldiers and families in crisis -- an idea proposed by Walter Reed social workers but rejected by the military command that runs the post.

It seems to fit with other things I hear. There seems to be a lot of lip service to "supporting the troops", but some of the most important support seems to be lacking.

[bloodstomper]

mcmillan wrote:

"There seems to be a lot of lip service to "supporting the troops", but some of the most important support seems to be lacking."

Shut up and have another goddamned drink!

If you were a real American, you'd forget about Walter Reed hospital and focus on the real challenges facing America today; namely, just what the f**k are they gonna do with Anna Nicole Smith's body? They can't keep it on ice forever and expect to have an open casket, now, can they? I mean, after a while, she's not going to look very pretty, right? Boy, what a waste of a good piece of ass, right? Well? Right?

[Uncle Kvetch]

If you were a real American, you'd forget about Walter Reed hospital and focus on the real challenges facing America today; namely, just what the f**k are they gonna do with Anna Nicole Smith's body?

That was last week. This week all good Americans are tut-tutting over/feasting on that Crazy-Ass Britney "Kojak" Spears.

This is not an innocent error on your part. You are clearly objectively on the other side.