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Walter Reed--A Slightly Different Portrayal

Richard Doolittle

Well-known member
Subject: FROM THE CHIEF OF CHAPLAINS WRAMC...This has been verified by Snopes.

I have had enough and am going to give my perspective on the news about Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Please understand that I am speaking for myself and I am responsible for my thoughts alone. The news media and politicians are making it sound like Walter Reed is a terrible place and the staff here has been abusing our brave wounded soldiers; what a bunch of bull!

I am completing my 24th year of service in the Army next month so you decide for yourself if I have the experience to write about this topic. I have been the senior clinical chaplain at Walter Reed for

four years and will leave to go back to the infantry this summer. I supervise the chaplain staff inside Walter Reed that cares for the 200 inpatients, the 650+ daily outpatients from the war who come to us for medical care, the 4000+ staff, and over 3000 soldiers and their families that come for clinical appointments daily.



Walter Reed has cared for over 5500 wounded from the war. I cannot count the number of sick and non-battle injured that have come through over that timeframe. The staff at this facility has done an incredible job at the largest US military medical center with the worst injured of the war. We have cared for over 400 amputees and their families. I am privileged to serve the wounded, their families, and our staff.

When the news about building 18 broke I was on leave. I was in shock when the news broke. We in the chaplains office in Walter Reed, as well as the majority of people at Walter Reed, did not know anyone was in building 18. I didn't even know we had a building 18. How can that happen? Walter Reed is over 100 acres of 66 buildings on two installations. Building 18 is not on the installation of Walter Reed and was believed to be closed years ago by our department.



The fact that some leaders in the medical brigade that is in charge of the outpatients put soldiers in there is terrible. That is why the company commander, first sergeant, and a group of platoon leaders and platoon sergeants were relieved immediately. They failed their soldiers and the Army. The commanding general was later relieved (more about this) and his sergeant major has been told to move on--if he gets to. The brigade sergeant major was relieved and more relief's are sure to come and need to.



As any leader knows, if you do not take care of soldiers, lie, and then try to cover it up, you are not worthy of the commission you hold and should be sent packing. I have no issue, and am actually proud, that they did relieve the leaders they found who knew of the terrible conditions some of our outpatients were enduring. The media is making it sound like these conditions are rampant at Walter Reed and nothing could be further from the truth. We need improvements and will now get them. I hate it that it took this to make it happen.

The Army and the media made MG Weightman, our CG, out to be the problem and fired him. This was a great injustice. He was only here for six months, is responsible for military medical care in the 20 Northeast states, wears four "hats" of responsibilities, and relies on his subordinate leaders to know what is happening in their areas of responsibilities. He has a colonel that runs the hospital (my hospital commander), a colonel that runs the medical brigade (where the outpatient wounded are assigned and supposedly cared for), and a colonel that is responsible to run the garrison and installation.



What people don't know is that he was making many changes as he became aware of them and had requested money to fix other places on the installation. The Army did not come through until four months after he asked for the money, remember that he was here only six months, which was only days before they relieved him. His leaders responsible for outpatient care did not tell him about conditions in building 18. He has been an incredible leader who really cares about the wounded, their families, and our staff. I cannot say the same about a former commander, who was my first commander here at Walter Reed, and definitely knew about many problems and is in the position to fix them and he did not.



MG Weightman also should not be held responsible for the military's unjust and inefficient medical board system and the problems in the VA system. We lost a great leader and passionate man who showed he had the guts to make changes and was doing so when he was made the scapegoat for others.

What I am furious about is that the media is making it sound like all of Walter Reed is like building 18. Nothing could be further from the truth. No system is perfect but the medical staff provides great care in this hospital. What needs to be addressed, and finally will, is the bureaucratic garbage that all soldiers are put through going into medical boards and medical retirements. Congress is finally giving the money that people have asked for at Walter Reed for years to fix places on the installations and address shortcomings. What they don't want you to know is Congress caused many problems by the BRAC process saying they were closing Walter Reed.



We cannot keep nor attract all the quality people we need at Walter Reed when they know this place will close in several years and they are not promised a job at the new hospital. Then they did this thing call A76 where they fired many of the workers here for a company of contractors, IAP, to get a contract to provide care outside the hospital proper. The company, which is responsible for maintenance, only hired half the number of people as there were originally assigned to maintenance areas to save money. Walter Reed leadership fought the A76 and BRAC process for years, but lost. Congress instituted the BRAC and A76 process; not the leadership of Walter Reed.

What I wish everyone would also hear is that for every horror story we are now hearing about in the media that truly needs to be addressed, you are not hearing about the hundreds of other wounded and injured soldiers who tell a story of great care they received. You are not hearing about the incredibly high morale of our troops and the fact that most of them want to go back, be with their teammates, and finish the job properly. You should be very proud of the wounded troopers we have at Walter Reed. They make me so proud to be in the Army and I will fight to get their story out.

I want you to hear the whole story because our wounded, their families, our Army, and the nation need to know that many in the media and select politicians have an agenda. Forget agendas and make the changes that have been needed for years to fix problems in every military hospital and the VA system. The poor leaders will be identified and sent packing and good riddance to them. I wish the same could be said for the politicians and media personalities who are also responsible but now want it to look like they are very concerned. Where have they been for the last four years? I am ashamed of what they all did and the pain it has caused many to think that everyone is like that.



Please know that you are not hearing the whole story. Please know that there are thousands of dedicated soldiers and civilian medical staff caring for your soldiers and their families. When I leave here I will end up deploying. When soldiers in my division have to go to Walter Reed from the battlefield, I know they will get great medical care. I pray that you know the same thing.



God bless all our troops and their families wherever they may be.

God bless you all,

+Chaplain John L. Kallerson
Senior Chaplain Clinician
Walter Reed Army Medical Center
 

Econ101

Well-known member
I am sure this is more close to the truth. We do know that the funding requested did not go through, and that perhaps some innocents paid the price because of the publicity. I believe that was the case in the abu graib deal also. I personally think that axing the wrong people for political reasons is just as bad as the building 18 problems.

What is also concerning is that politicians seem to focus on one of these problems at a time---especially when the media brings it out to light. In fact, many problems just such as this, in perhaps other government entities, occurs a lot. Bureaucracies have their problems. In the private industry, these kind of problems are corrected by the market--when the market and laws are applied consistently across the board.

I don't think that as big as our country is, the media can pick all of the areas that need to be addressed. That is what management should do---whether the political appointees or bureaucratic management they oversee. Making political appointments who are not qualified just for political purposes doesn't serve the purpose political appointees are supposed to fill. They are supposed to be the "new and better" management that takes the place of the last political party's political appointments.

Congress has a LOT of work trying to oversee the agencies it funds. Their oversight is critical to holding the bureaucrats and the political appointee's feet to the fire so they do a better job. Congress also has a duty to make sure that their funding is being efficiently used for the purposes the money was given. When Congress does not engage in these duties, we can have major failures that when uncovered by the media, can be quite embarrassing.

I am glad the chaplain spoke out. It is too bad that it took media attention to spur change in building 18 and it is too bad that some "innocents" paid the price for politician's lack of oversight. We should have politicians who take their job more seriously to oversee their respective agencies and not have to react to the few stories the media champions. It gives much too much power to what our media does or does not think is important.
 

Steve

Well-known member
February 24, 2006 The Government Accountability Office earlier this week dismissed a protest filed on behalf of employees at the Army's Walter Reed Medical Center, ruling that the employee group had no standing to challenge the outcome of a public-private job competition initiated prior to January 2005.

GAO's decision, announced on Wednesday, concluded that Alan King, Walter Reed's deputy garrison commander, was not an "interested party" with standing to pursue the protest on behalf of the federal employee group bidding in the competition.

The dismissal means that GAO will not consider King's challenge of a contest for base operations support services at Walter Reed. The competition began in January 2000. The in-house employee team won in September 2004, but the award was the subject of numerous appeals and a round of revisions leading to an award to Cape Canaveral, Fla.-based IAP Worldwide Services last month.
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0206/022406m1.htm

Replacing an in house crew with a contractor that reduces the staff by "failing to fill all vacancies"..Sounds fishy...

Who Runs the GAO ?

The position is currently filled by David M. Walker, a former Arthur Andersen partner began serving his 15-year term in 1998.

Wasn't Arther Anderson the company that had "a series of scandals involving irregular accounting procedures bordering on fraud, perpetrated throughout the late 1990s",about Enrons financial problems in the later part of Clintons Presidency?

Arthur Andersen LLP, based in Chicago, later named Andersen, was once one of the Big Five accounting firms, performing auditing, tax, and consulting services for large corporations. In 2002 the firm voluntarily surrendered its licenses to practice as Certified Public Accountants in the U.S. pending the result of prosecution by the Department of Justice over the firm's handling of the auditing of Enron,

Sounds to me the investigation should be in who appointed this Man....from Arther Anderson.and see his connection to Enron the failed company.....


How did a partner at AA get into our Government top auditor position?
 

Tom Russell

Active member
We have a Congress that is doing all it can to investigate and investigate they do. We elected them and we are to blame for the continual investigating we are getting from Congress. Perhaps next time, we will elect leaders who lead instead of investigators who don’t.
 

Steve

Well-known member
Tom Russell
We have a Congress that is doing all it can to investigate and investigate they do.

If the problem at Walter Reed is in the lack of Maintenance,.then why not investigate that...

Maybe because the individual's company gave alot of Money to one Party and as head of the GAO "decided" that the contract should go to a firm he wanted?

This guy that Leads the GAO was a partner of Arther Anderson, when AA was cooking the books for Enron.

Why not look into why the contract was "taken" from the in-house crew who bid less....and given to a contractor who bid more and refused to fill vacancies.....

It took me less then a half hour to find this connection of why the maintenance staffing vacancies were not filled in...and why conditions deteriorated over the last year.
 
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