Obama quietly visits wounded vets at Walter Reed

[Hope And Change]

Obama quietly visits wounded vets at Walter Reed


Jun 28, 9:42 AM (ET)

By SARA KUGLER

WASHINGTON (AP) - Barack Obama stopped by Walter Reed Army Medical Center Saturday to visit wounded war veterans, a group that he has said endures substandard care under the Bush administration.

The presumed Democratic nominee, who was in Washington to speak to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, slipped into the facility shortly after 9 a.m. without stopping to speak to the small group of reporters who follow him. The visit wasn't on his public schedule.

Obama has criticized the Bush administration for its treatment of veterans returning from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and has suggested Republican rival John McCain would continue Bush policies if elected.

The administration was roundly criticized last year after it was revealed that veterans at Walter Reed were housed in rundown accommodations and suffered neglectful care.

Obama has said the country has failed its veterans by allowing such "second-rate conditions," by not giving troops enough time at home and not doing enough to support military families.


more...

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080628/D91J41781.html

[Tinksrival]

1. What???

No photo-op with an amputee?? What kind of politician is Obama? I'll vote for him but no more $$ or work!

Hurumph!

:sarcasm:

[Chulanowa]

4. Harumph, harumph, harumph!

[Cha]

9. Obama is obviously

photo op unsavvy!

[saltpoint]

2. This is how it is done.

Bravo, Senator Obama.

[CTyankee]

I am reminded of a photo posted here at DU of John Kerry quietly attending

a funeral at Arlington National Cemetary of a serviceman from Mass. killed in Iraq (about a year ago). It wasn't published in the NY Times or any other news outlet I saw, so I was incredibly impressed with Kerry for his empathy and integrity.

This is similar to Garry Trudeau's visiting at vets hospitals (also Walter Reed if I remember correctly) so he could accurately portray the wounded vets in his strip, Doonesbury. The stark contrast to the Republicans is just so astonishing...

Can you imagine Dick Cheney ("I had other priorities") doing something like that?

Bravo indeed, Sen. Obama. I doff my cap!

[CTyankee]

8. I am reminded of a photo posted here at DU of John Kerry quietly attending

a funeral at Arlington National Cemetary of a serviceman from Mass. killed in Iraq (about a year ago). It wasn't published in the NY Times or any other news outlet I saw, so I was incredibly impressed with Kerry for his empathy and integrity.

This is similar to Garry Trudeau's visiting at vets hospitals (also Walter Reed if I remember correctly) so he could accurately portray the wounded vets in his strip, Doonesbury. The stark contrast to the Republicans is just so astonishing...

Can you imagine Dick Cheney ("I had other priorities") doing something like that?

Bravo indeed, Sen. Obama. I doff my cap!

[babylonsister]

3. Rec'd. I'm very impressed with this, and am glad he's talking to

the wounded soldiers. My hope is this might make him want to get out of Iraq faster.

[tridim]

5. Just like when he was filling sandbags in Iowa.

He's nothing like the average American politician, and that's why I respect him.

[Hope And Change]

6. Kick!

[pnorman]

7. Not directly related to Obama, but this came to mind when I read this:

CHER calls C-SPAN!: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2003/10/27/11625/785

pnorman
On edit: Here's another one not directly related to Obama. "False Memory" had me attributing it to Cher, but Google set me straight.

>
Sgt. Jeremy Feldbusch, a fit, driven, highly capable Army Ranger, left home in February knowing the risks of combat. Two months later, he came home blind.

A growing number of young men and women are returning from Iraq and trying to resume lives that were interrupted by war and then minced by injury. Sergeant Feldbusch, a moody 24-year-old, is one of them, back in a little town in western Pennsylvania, in a little house overlooking trees and snow-blanketed hills he cannot see.

...

During the two months Jeremy Feldbusch spent recovering at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, his parents lived at his bedside. Charlene Feldbusch remembers one day seeing a young female soldier crawling past her in the corridor with no legs and her 3-year-old son trailing behind.

Ms. Feldbusch started to cry. But not for the woman.

"Do you know how many times I walked up and down those hallways and saw those people without arms or legs and thought, Why couldn't this be my son? Why his eyes?"
>

http://www.eschatonblog.com/2003_12_28_archive.html

[Cha]

10. This is our dream..to have

our troops come home from Iraq and be taken care of properly. They are being blown up and maimed..for what? To fatten the coffers of the OIL people.

[Kdillard]

11. Continues to earn my respect.