The recent scandal about Walter Reed Hospital is just another part of a pattern.
On February 18, 2007, the Washington Post published a disturbing article about conditions faced by wounded troops from Iraq and Afghanistan at some facilities at Walter Reed Hospital. I am not going to discuss the article because I feel that people need to read the entire article. Also, the Post website has a page which contains links to everything the paper has written regarding the conditions at Walter Reed.
In this post I am going to say that this kind of treatment of our troops and veterans is basically par for the course for the Bush administration and the Congress formerly controlled by the Republicans. In late June 2005, I wrote about ways in which these people were disregarding the welfare of our wounded troops and veterans. Here are then links:
George W. Bush and his apparent exclusion of people from the "culture of life"
An update on Bush's exclusion of veterans and active duty personnel from his "culture of life"
posted by WCharles @ 2/25/2007 02:03:00 AM
2 Comments:
OK, the only connection I can make between the current conditions at Walter Reed and Bush are that many of the current patients are there as a result of Bush's war. But, how many were in the system prior to the current Iraq War. And is this really just another example of poor government bureaucracy?
This ought to make any fan of nationalized medicine think twice.
That said, I learned a year ago about a childhood friend whom I haven't seen in nearly 30 years who has been involved in the Iraq War as a medic. He is a HS teacher in his real life. In his mid 50s he found the stress getting to him and he ended up with severe heart problems. He was sent home to Walter Reed patched up and sent back even though he pleaded not to go back. He was sent to Germany before going back to Iraq and within a few short months was back in the states with worse heart problems. Seems odd sending a 55 year old man into battle like that who is on the verge of a heart attack.
Aside from the fact that subjecting our injured troops to these conditions is shameful, my criticism goes to the abject hypocrisy and complete lack of planning of the Bush administration. All the talk about supporting the troops and a culture of life and then all this stuff happening at Walter Reed and elsewhere (read my previous posts for the details).
I think the connection you see is accurate, but not all-inclusive. That connection shows the lack of planning and the delusion related to the expectations of the administration regarding this war. They never thought there would be a need to plan for this many casualties. That goes beyond poor bureaucracy.
I am sorry to hear about your friend. Him getting sent back seems to be indicative of how thinly stretched our military is.
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