A Article from February 2006 about Walter Reed and they say they didn't know

[Monkeyman]

A dead soldier hangs in his room for four days and Walter Reed finally check for no-show patients. The article is called Behind the Walls of Ward 54 at Walter Reed. Bullshit they know about problems and this was in the Hospital itself.

http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2005/02/18/walter_reed/index.html

[Uncle Joe]

1. Lord have mercy!

:cry: :grr:

[Sherman A1]

2. The Officer's

in charge of Walter Reed should not be fired or allowed to resign. They should be taken into custody charged with neglect, conduct unbecoming and dereliction of duty. Then tried, convicted and sent to a nice Federal Facility on a wonderful island in the Caribbean.

[stevedeshazer]

3. Off to the greatest page with you

Excellent article.

[Monkeyman]

4. DU pass this out to all you know

Remember the Blue Brother we are on a Mission From God. I am now on a Mission to get these Generals locked up

[w8liftinglady]

12. I am working on my next LTTE..waiting for Monday.

I will inform as many as I can here in Texas-big retiree state.we will get many to our side.I have already converted my dad(27 year veteran of 2 wars)

[stevedeshazer]

5. And just imagine, this was ONE FULL YEAR AGO.

:grr:

Of course they knew. They didn't care.

Heartless bastards.

[Monkeyman]

6. We Know nothing ya right the SOB'S

[Monkeyman]

7. Larry Scott has posted this on VA Watchdog

I have sent this to VVAW and Veterans For America lets get this out please

[spanone]

8. K & R

[w8liftinglady]

9. the more that comes out-the more this sickens me.who is the commander-in-chief?

doesn't the fault ultimately lie with him?

[frogcycle]

16. yes, yes, and yes

any honorable person would step down, right now.
Just put on a Jimmy Swaggert crying act, say, "I am sorry, America, for being such a fuckup," then go out in the yard and blow his brains out.

[Poiuyt]

10. They knew long before that - it goes back (to at least) 2003

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.

snip -

In 2004, Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.) and his wife stopped visiting the wounded at Walter Reed out of frustration. Young said he voiced concerns to commanders over troubling incidents he witnessed but was rebuffed or ignored. "When Bev or I would bring problems to the attention of authorities of Walter Reed, we were made to feel very uncomfortable," said Young, who began visiting the wounded recuperating at other facilities.

Beverly Young said she complained to Kiley several times. She once visited a soldier who was lying in urine on his mattress pad in the hospital. When a nurse ignored her, Young said, "I went flying down to Kevin Kiley's office again, and got nowhere. He has skirted this stuff for five years and blamed everyone else."

snip -

"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."

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.

more -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/28/AR2007022801954.html

[Monkeyman]

11. Thanks for posting that

[ThoughtCriminal]

19. Why Didn't Rep. Young (R-Fla) start an investigation?

Instead he just switched to visiting other facilities. The Republican idea of "Oversight" seems to be "Overlook".

[babylonsister]

20. The facts in this article go back that far, too. It's been ongoing even

though this is the first time we've heard about it.

[Up2Late]

13. This is SO Depressing! I don't know how many more of these horror stories I can take.

I just can't believe ANYONE still support these bastards.

[Up2Late]

14. bug dupe

:mad:

[Monkeyman]

15. I hate these people and I love most

[babylonsister]

17. Oh, my heart hurts, Monkeyman. This is so SAD first off.

PTSD is a proven evil from VN. The fact that no one is acknowledging that is heartbreaking. Thank God for articles like this; I just sent it to everyone in my address book.

:cry: :cry: :cry:

[Monkeyman]

21. You know How I Feel my heart is breaking

Thank you for sending this one out its important

[frogcycle]

18. the one tiny glimmer of solace

is that this could well be what finally takes this administration down.

this is something that they just... can... not... spin!

There is no sentence Tony Snow can construct to make this go away. He tried when it first came out. But it has gotten bigger by the day. So maybe these heroes, by enduring this crap on top of their contributions before being wounded, will be able to look back and say "I helped save the United States."

[blonndee]

22. Actually, this is from Feb. 2005. n/t

[Monkeyman]

23. As I read it . It was printed in 2006 about what happen in 2005

Opps I am Sorry it was 2005 my bad it is to late to change the title

[babylonsister]

24. It doesn't matter. It happened and probably still is. There are only a few .

stories in this article; what other ones have we all missed?:(

[Marie26]

25. Sen. Mikulski urged the Army Sec.. NOT to privitize Walter Reed.

March 16, 2006,

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senator Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) today joined several of her Senate and House colleagues, including Senator Paul S. Sarbanes, Congressmen Steny Hoyer and Albert Wynn (all D-Md.) in sending a letter to Secretary of the Army Francis J. Harvey, urging him not to enter into a contract for base operations support services, which would result in the outsourcing of 350 federal jobs at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. In the letter, the members criticize the highly unusual circumstances of this particular privatization review and express concern that the Army may be violating provisions in the Defense Appropriations bill, as well as rules set by the Department of Defense that limit A-76 reviews to 48 months. The letter also warns that Congressional intervention may be necessary if the Army proceeds with this contract.

http://mikulski.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=252840

[Up2Late]

26. Have you posted this article before here at DU? Because if not, you should start a new Thread...

...with it. I don't remember seeing it, and I'm here a LOT.:kick:

[Marie26]

27. Norton actually passed an amendment to stop this.

No, I haven't - feel free to start a new thread, though it might've been posted by someone else. What's interesting is that there was a lot of opposition at the time to pritivitzing Walter Reed. In addition to the protest by Mikulski, et al, Rep. Eleanor Norton Holmes actually included an amendment to the 2007 Defense Bill that prohibited the outsourcing from going forward. The Army ignored the law, and proceeded w/the transition to IAP anyway.

So, the Army 1.) suddenly reversed its contracting award, taking the Walter Reed contract away from federal employees in order to give it to IAP instead. 2.) Ignored outcry, lawsuits and a federal law in order to proceed w/the IAP award anyway. That is highly, highly suspicious - it reeks of corruption & kickbacks at work here. Any government official who says they "didn't know" that the IAP contract could cause problems is straight-up lying. MANY people protested this decision at the time. The 2006 article even mentions that the IAP award would cause a "reduction in personel" at Walter Reed Hospital. They just didn't care.

House votes to block Walter Reed outsourcing; Army moves forward
By Jenny Mandel

June 23, 2006

Foes of a controversial public-private job competition at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center scored a victory this week when the House approved language to strip funding for a contractor to take over base operations at the facility, complicating Army plans for a transition slated to begin in August.

Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., offered an amendment to the fiscal 2007 Defense appropriations bill that would block the Army from using funds to enter into a contract stemming from the Walter Reed competition. That competition, which was initiated in June 2000, affects about 350 federal employees at the Washington facility.

A Norton press release said that while "neither Republicans nor Democrats want anti-privatization amendments on the DoD appropriation," the legislator had made the case that "the Walter Reed contracting out was so grotesque that it was the right vehicle to make DoD abide by its own regulations," a reference to rules limiting the duration of such competitions.

The House action Tuesday took Walter Reed officials by surprise, according to a Friday article in Stripe, a weekly newspaper published by the medical center. ... The article described a June 14 briefing for Walter Reed officials by representatives of Cape Canaveral, Fla.-based IAP Worldwide Services, which was awarded the contract in January. IAP outlined plans for a transition period to take over the work, beginning Aug. 19 and concluding Nov. 19, according to the article.

Stripe reported that at the direction of the Army Medical Command, Walter Reed officials will continue to move forward with the transition plan as scheduled, including proceeding with a reduction in force.

http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=34414&sid=6

Rep. Norton's press release -

Norton Saves Jobs for 350 Federal Workers at
Walter Reed in D.C. in DoD Appropriation
June 20, 2006

Washington, DC — In a spectacular turnaround win, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) tonight scored a victory that many had labeled impossible by convincing Department of Defense (DoD) appropriators to save the jobs of 350 federal employees scheduled to lose them this month as a result of an outsourcing contract at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Norton was able to get an amendment included in the House-passed DoD appropriation bill to block the privatization on the grounds that the bidding process--known as an A-76 privatization review-- was “illegal, wasteful, biased and botched.” Because the process took 68 months rather than 30, as required by a Defense Appropriations Subcommittee limitation enacted by Congress, “this privatization became the poster child for contracting out with unfairness to workers at hideous costs to taxpayers, rather than the savings required by law,” Norton said. “If allowed, the decision to contract out these services would have cost taxpayers almost $22 million, according to a cost estimate prepared by Walter Reed, instead of the initial purported savings of $7 million.”

http://www.norton.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=384&Itemid=6