GolfHos

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070218/LOCAL17/702180393/0/LOCAL

I'm not one to bitch about 'The Evil Lib Media', because there really isn't such a thing, but this piece is a sensationalistic hack job of the worst sort, that really does NOBODY any good whatsoever, other than allow the folks down at The WaPo to pat themselves on the back.

The Army's been trying to get Walter Reed updated (read 'Replaced') for a decade or more, and 99 pct of the folks that work there, in my personal experience are extremely hardworking and caring individuals.

$.02 (having no experience with the place or people)

i'm sure the employees are great people

i'm sure the description that the facility is crap is accurate

just funny to me we'll spend $1T to fight over there and not 5B  for a modern hospital

Just FWIW, I believe that the  Army has upgraded about half a dozen hospitals around the country over the last couple of decades (I know for an absolute fact that the one at Wainright is BRAND SPANKING new, and Womack at Bragg has been completely redone, top to bottom)

The WaPo picking on a facility that's been outdated for at least 2 decades, and my guess is that they KNOW it, but it makes a nice little 'Holier Than Thou' story.

Also reasonably certain that the ONLY reason it's still open is the type of Pork Barrell politics we all so love and treasure, but I'm to lazy to go dig all that up. I know it's been slated to be closed at least twice, with the patients moved to the much more modern facilities at Ft Sam in San Antonio....

And perhaps they wrote the story anyway, to give the Feds a little shove in the back on the matter.

It's not exactly 'News' that The Army is a hugely impersonal and at times highly inept beaureaucracy, and here they took a half a dozen examples and ran with them, along with pictured of the dreaded black mold.

They're not 'Pushing' anybody to do anything, from where I'm sitting.

No, I didn't say it was "news".  I mean that the Post is shaming Washington into action now with public disapproval.  I'd think that Democrats, newly in control and eager to show they support troops despite so vocally opposing the war, would be sensitive to anything that would make them look bad in that regard (and would jump at the chance to make themselves look good on the issue).

Make a show of withholding funds for the surge, then pass it but with an amendment funding the Reed renovation/replacement.

They don't need to 'Renovate', they need to 'Close', which is slated for 2011, moved back from 2000 or so, I can't quite recall.

I should really have Cpt. Mrs. FAWG address this, she can go into great detail as to why Reed really isn't suited to a large number of outpatients for a variety of different reasons, and why Ft Sam IS, for a whole other variety of reasons.

She's served both places, and I thought she was going to have a stroke when I e-mailed her this story.

Remember, those folks running Walter Reed are troops too...