‘I’m not a hero’
By Angela Nagel, Grand Forks HeraldPublished Monday, February 26, 2007
A year ago Sunday, Marine Cpl. Ben Lunak was on his second security patrol of the day near Ramadi, Iraq, when the Humvee he was riding in was hit by a roadside bomb.
He survived. Two of his best friends, both named Adam, died in the explosion.

Ben Lunak

New Study Probes Phantom-Limb Pain Relief

New Study Probes Phantom-Limb Pain Relief
Aggressive Pain Care Recommended for Iraq and Afghanistan Amputees
CHICAGO, Feb. 27 /PRNewswire/ -- Wounded veterans and others facing
limb amputations may avoid long-lasting phantom-limb pain through
aggressive pain management before and after surgery, according to a study
in The Journal of Pain.
Researchers at the University of Washington examined the impact of
intense pre-amputation pain and acute pain following amputation as
predictors of long- term pain. It was assumed pain before amputation can
produce pain 'memories' in the nervous system that persist after limb loss.
The condition is known as phantom-limb pain. Fifty-seven patients with
lower-limb amputations were evaluated. The average age was 44 and 70
percent required amputation from a traumatic injury.

Families fear sacrifices forgotten

Families fear sacrifices forgotten
By David McLemore
The Dallas Morning News
(MCT)
FLOWER MOUND, Texas - Debby Schick remembers the day in September 2004 when her world collapsed.
Her son, Marine Cpl. Jacob Schick, called from a military hospital in Germany saying he'd been injured and was coming home. A nurse got on the phone to tell her his right foot had been amputated.
Then came the hurried flight to a military hospital in Bethesda, Md., the antiseptic smell in the hall outside his room as she overheard him tell a nurse to cover him: "I don't want my mom to see this."

Roadside bomb injures Hillsboro serviceman in Iraq

Roadside bomb injures Hillsboro serviceman in Iraq
By: Don Ratzlaff
02/27/2007
Peter Richert, a specialist with the National Guard, was traveling with 12 other soldiers either Wednesday or Thursday when the bomb exploded in the vicinity of their vehicle.
According to Roger Sinclair, a National Guard recruiter who lives in Hillsboro and has been in contact with officers in Richert's battalion since the attack, one soldier was killed by the blast and 12 others, including Richert, were wounded to varying degrees.

Tour of Walter Reed- Video

Recovering at Walter Reed
Reporters Dana Priest and Anne V. Hull discuss their recent stories about Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Questioning the treatment of Iraqi veterans at Walter Reed Medical Center

Questioning the treatment of Iraqi veterans at Walter Reed Medical Center
DONNA TERESA Homefront Journal
Donna Teresa
When I wrote my January column, "Taking Care of Veterans," I had no expectations on the feedback I would receive. The e-mails I received from veterans was overwhelming.
A few days ago, I received another e-mail from a veteran who sent me a copy of an article that was written by Dana Priest and Anne Hull from The Washington Post called "Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration at Army's Top Medical Facility."

Who supports the troops?

Who supports the troops?
American soldiers wounded in Iraq have been living in a flop house on the grounds of the Army's most prestigious hospital. As they languish in a building with holes in the ceiling and mold on the walls, the broken and maimed veterans are harassed by bureaucracy and tangled in red tape.The Army was doing nothing about it until Washington Post reporters interviewed patients and their families and documented the appalling condition of their quarters at Walter Reed.Defense Secretary Robert Gates says the building is being fixed as quickly as possible and that whoever is found responsible will be "held accountable," whatever that might mean.So far, none of the officers in charge has been demoted or removed from command. As Gates's predecessor might have explained, you go to war with the hospitals you have. And the hospitals you don't.

Donnelly forms veterans board

Donnelly forms veterans board
Says he will seek Walter Reed probe.
JAMES WENSITS
Tribune Political Writer
SOUTH BEND -- U.S. Rep. Joe Donnelly, D-2nd, said Monday he hopes to help launch investigations into poor physical conditions at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center when he returns to Washington today.Donnelly also announced that a proposed veterans clinic in Elkhart County could open as early as next year

Troops deserve better

Troops deserve better
Army must focus on repairing systems
Article Launched: 02/27/2007 06:41:55 AM PST

The U.S. Army thankfully has responded quickly to reports that war-time outpatient facilities at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center are in disrepair, with bad plumbing, mold problems and rodents crawling around.
Such conditions are unfit for U.S. troops who must convalesce there after being seriously wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan. Some 700 soldiers housed in the deteriorating outpatient building suffer from severed arms and legs, broken necks and backs, organ damage and brain injuries.
Now the military needs to fix the bureaucratic mess that has left many recuperating troops scrounging for disability benefits.

Walter Reed expose- video

Fallout from Iraq veteran exposé
Feb. 20: Dana Priest reports on the fallout from her Washington Post exposé about the treatment of vets at Walter Reed, and Sen. Claire McCaskill discusses legislation she is introducing with Sen. Barack Obama to fix patient care.

Tammy Duckworth- Video

Iraq vet on shoddy hospital care
Feb. 20: “Countdown” host Keith Olbermann talks to Maj. Tammy Duckworth, who lost both of her legs in combat in Iraq, about the treatment of veterans.

Fixing Walter Reed- Video

Fixing Walter Reed Feb. 22: The Army is now fixing the troubling conditions at Walter Reed that were exposed in a story by the Washington Post. Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley is responsible for all of the Army medical facilities.

Gen. Kiley knew about vets' outpatient scandal

Gen. Kiley knew about vets' outpatient scandal
Veterans groups told the Army surgeon general about the shockingly bad mental health treatment at Walter Reed two months before the latest expose, but there's no evidence he followed up.
By Mark Benjamin
Photo: AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta
U.S. Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley speaks to the press at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center complex Thursday, Feb. 22, 2007, in Washington.
Feb. 27, 2007 Though he has since dodged the question in a television interview, the officer in charge of medical care for the U.S. Army was told more than two months ago that the Army's outpatient medical care program was dysfunctional, yet he apparently took no action in response. The Army's outpatient services include the substandard treatment at Walter Reed Army Medical Center that has been the subject of a number of recent articles in the Washington Post and a series of stories in Salon in 2005.

Walter Reed patients told to keep quiet

Walter Reed patients told to keep quiet
By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writerPosted : Tuesday Feb 27, 2007 22:09:20 EST

Soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center’s Medical Hold Unit say they have been told they will wake up at 6 a.m. every morning and have their rooms ready for inspection at 7 a.m., and that they must not speak to the media.
“Some soldiers believe this is a form of punishment for the trouble soldiers caused by talking to the media,” one Medical Hold Unit soldier said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
It is unusual for soldiers to have daily inspections after Basic Training.
Soldiers say their sergeant major gathered troops at 6 p.m. Monday to tell them they must follow their chain of command when asking for help with their medical evaluation paperwork, or when they spot mold, mice or other problems in their quarters.
They were also told they would be moving out of Building 18 to Building 14 within the next couple of weeks. Building 14 is a barracks that houses the administrative offices for the Medical Hold Unit and was renovated in 2006. It’s also located on the Walter Reed Campus, where reporters must be escorted by public affairs personnel. Building 18 is located just off campus and is easy to access.

Soldiers need care beyond the hospital

Soldiers need care beyond the hospital
Published February 23, 2007
No doubt Walter Reed Army Medical Center works miracles with the severely injured soldiers who lost their limbs or their sanity on Iraq's bloody streets. Once they are stabilized by the best of modern medicine, however, those soldiers enter the "Other Walter Reed," a place of bewildering bureaucracy and countless humiliations.
In a startling investigative work, Washington Post reporters Dana Priest and Anne Hull (both formerly of the St. Petersburg Times) uncovered the bleak world of the less public Walter Reed. Their reporting put names and faces to a national shame, soldiers who have sacrificed their bodies and sense of well-being for their country only to have the military turn its back on them.

Fast Facts:

Fast Facts:
Walter Reed Army Medical Center
Opened: May 1, 1909. A 260-bed building opened in 1978.
Location: Washington, D.C.
Patients: More than 14,000 admitted a year. Beds accommodate 250. The outpatient treatment facilities serve thousands a day.
Named after: Army Maj. Walter Reed, a medical research pioneer who discovered early in the 1900s that mosquitoes transmit yellow fever.
Source: www.wramc.amedd. army.mil/

Injured vets now battle for benefits

Injured vets now battle for benefits
By Anne Hull and Dana Priest
The Washington Post

This is the second part of a report on conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., where the wounded who cannot return to battle struggle along with their families.

WASHINGTON — The guests of Mologne House have been blown up, shot, crushed and shaken, and now their convalescence takes place among the chandeliers and wingback chairs of the 200-room hotel on the grounds of Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
Oil paintings hang in the lobby of this strange outpost in the war on terrorism, where the maimed and the newly legless sit in wheelchairs next to a pond, watching goldfish turn lazily through the water.

Bryan Anderson
David Thomas

This is no way to support the troops

This is no way to support the troops
By Rich Lewis, February 22, 2007
Last updated: Thursday, February 22, 2007 10:20 AM EST

“(P)art of the wall is torn and hangs in the air, weighted down with black mold.... Signs of neglect are everywhere: mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses.”What is being described here? An inner-city crack house? A homeless shelter in post-Katrina New Orleans?No. These are the opening lines of a series of articles in the Washington Post this week about the outpatient facilities at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.The room described above is occupied by Army Spec. Jeremy Duncan, who returned from Iraq “with a broken neck and a shredded left ear, nearly dead from blood loss.”

US Army’s Top Hospital Faces Criticism over Maintenance

US Army’s Top Hospital Faces Criticism over Maintenance
February 22, 2007By voanews
The U.S. Army’s second in command says he is disappointed in the living conditions that wounded soldiers endure at the Army’s main hospital for the wounded.
A newspaper investigation in Washington, D.C. revealed what it called neglect of the soldiers, and frustration among those soldiers and their families. The Army is promising action and some in Congress want an investigation. VOA’s Jim Fry reports:
Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. prides itself as the Army’s premier health care facility for the nation’s war wounded. The Army holds out as an example, the amputee center — where soldiers receive the latest computerized artificial limbs. But just across Georgia Avenue is a residence for recuperating soldiers known only as Building 18. Here The Washington Post found soldiers who wait months – even years — for follow-up care or discharge from the Army. Some live in substandard conditions, with black mold, damaged walls and holes in ceilings.

Recovery from tragedy, in her words

By David Zucchino, Los Angeles Times
Last update: February 25, 2007 – 1:23 AM
With her husband in a coma, unable to breathe on his own, Nancy Kules sat down at a computer and began to type. PRAY, PRAY, PRAY, she wrote.

Ryan Kules

Japanese Ambassador Honors Wounded U.S. Veterans

Japanese Ambassador Honors Wounded U.S. Veterans
By John J. Kruzel,
American Forces Press ServiceFeb 25, 2007 - 5:03:00 PM
WASHINGTON, D.C. - In Japan, people make origami paper cranes for the sick and injured as a prayer for their recovery.A group of 70 wounded U.S. veterans and their family members found such cranes waiting for them on their dinner tables last night, when they attended a dinner in their honor at the residence of Japanese Ambassador Ryozo Kato.

Marissa Strock

Amputee encourages students

Amputee encourages students
WINSTON — Christian Bagge leaned against the bleachers Tuesday, out of sight, as Winston Middle School Principal Charan Cline introduced him.Then Bagge walked across the gym floor on the prosthetic legs that extended from his shorts to his tennis shoes as more than 250 pairs of eyes watched. Some recognized him from pictures or newscasts they’d seen of him jogging with President George W. Bush last June.

Christian Bagge

Ryan Groves

"We've done our duty. We fought the war. We came home wounded. Fine. But whoever the people are back here who are supposed to give us the easy transition should be doing it," said Marine Sgt. Ryan Groves, 26, an amputee who lived at Walter Reed for 16 months. "We don't know what to do. The people who are supposed to know don't have the answers. It's a nonstop process of stalling."

A gaping wound

A gaping wound
Dana Priest and Anne Hull
The Washington Post
February 25, 2007
Soldiers face neglect, frustration at Army's top medical facilityWASHINGTON -- Behind the door of Army Spc. Jeremy Duncan's room, part of the wall is torn and hangs in the air, weighted down with black mold. When the wounded combat engineer stands in his shower and looks up, he can see the bathtub on the floor above through a rotted hole. The entire building, constructed between the world wars, often smells like greasy carry-out. Signs of neglect are everywhere: mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses.This is the world of Building 18, not the kind of place where Duncan expected to recover when he was evacuated to Walter Reed Army Medical Center from Iraq last February with a broken neck and a shredded left ear, nearly dead from blood loss. But the old lodge, just outside the gates of the hospital and five miles up the road from the White House, has housed hundreds of maimed soldiers recuperating from injuries suffered in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A virtual take on cutting-edge medicine

A virtual take on cutting-edge medicine
Posted Feb. 26, 2007
Health Care
A virtual take on cutting-edge medicine

By David Ortiz,PBN Staff Writer
Dr. Roy Aaron recalls the first time he donned a head-mounted display – a device resembling a helmet with goggles that displays computer-generated images for the eyes – and was suddenly immersed in virtual reality.

Worst to Come at Walter Reed

Worst to Come at Walter Reed
Paul Rieckhoff February 26, 2007
Severely wounded Iraq veterans struggling to find their rooms, get appointments, or get their paperwork to the right offices. Families unable to communicate with doctors or find housing near the hospital. Mold, rodents and cockroaches in patients' rooms. Hopefully, you have heard about this story by now.
At Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the premier Army hospital in the country, wounded Iraq and Afghanistan veterans were facing inexcusable conditions. The Army and the Department of Defense saw no need to fix these problems until they were embarrassed by a series of reports in The Washington Post.

Congress shares blame for Walter Reed mess

Congress shares blame for Walter Reed mess
Jacobs: Lawmakers should complain less and work more on oversight
Jack Jacobs
Military analyst
Although the noise over the conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center may subside, the lessons, it is hoped, will endure.
A great deal of media attention was generated when Dana Priest of the Washington Post wrote an article in which she detailed that wounded soldiers were encountering decrepit conditions and insurmountable red tape.

Army secretary orders hospital fixes

Army secretary orders hospital fixes
By Steve Vogel
The Washington Post
WASHINGTON - The preliminary findings of a nine-month Army investigation confirm problems in the administrative procedures at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and other hospitals, and Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey has ordered the service to begin fixing them, a spokesman said this weekend.
The Army inspector general's probe said that the service needs to standardize its training of workers who assist patients, that its information-management databases are inadequate and that there are "policy disconnects" between Army regulations and Defense Department instructions.

Ohio War Vets Get Help From Army Hospital

Ohio War Vets Get Help From Army Hospital

8:50 a.m. EST February 26, 2007
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Since the war in Iraq began, more than 3,000 servicemen and women have been killed. The tens of thousands who were wounded start a long journey to recovery. The faces of war -- including many from the Tri-State area -- get help at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. "You don't know what you have until you lose it," said Army Specialist Adam Poppenhouse. Poppenhouse is just one of hundreds who arrived at Walter Reed to have their arms and legs rebuilt. His leg was blown off by an improvised explosive device.

McFeatters: Medical miracles, bureaucratic nightmares at Walter

McFeatters: Medical miracles, bureaucratic nightmares at Walter ReedBy Ann McFeatters/Syndicated columnist
Sunday, February 25, 2007 - Updated: 12:19 AM EST

WASHINGTON - A day at Walter Reed Army Medical Center is an eye-opener - about our soldiers, our government generally and the Bush administration.
I visited the renowned hospital complex after The Washington Post ran a series of articles exposing serious problems at the center, where as many as one-fourth of our injured soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan are treated. The halls are swarming with the wounded and their families. Residential facilities for recuperating soldiers and their spouses have a long waiting list.
The Post reported that soldiers are housed in deteriorated conditions of mold, mice infestations, disrepair and inadequate facilities for amputees. Depression and post-traumatic stress syndrome are often overlooked. Nightmarish paperwork stymies even the most aggressive.

A Veteran's View of Conditions at Walter Reed

A Veteran's View of Conditions at Walter Reed

Weekend Edition Saturday, February 24, 2007 · Defense Secretary Robert Gates examined the facilities at Army Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., Friday and announced that a commission will investigate the medical services that injured soldiers receive there and at other military facilities. Secretary Gates and other officials have vowed to improve the care that wounded soldiers receive. The sudden focus on this issue was prompted by a Washington Post series that portrayed squalid living conditions and bureaucratic delays at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

The Two Worlds of Walter Reed
Friday, Feb. 23, 2007 By MICHAEL WEISSKOPF/WASHINGTON

We used to get chocolate milk delivered to our beds. The amputees of Walter Reed Army Medical Center were accustomed to first-class service as a matter of hospital policy. "The Ritz-Carlton is where you want to go, not Motel 6," the head nurse of Ward 57 told her staff after the Iraq war began in 2003. "That's how I want all my patients treated."
But it was a courtesy that apparently stopped at the hospital's front door. According to a series in this week's Washington Post, some wounded soldiers have lived amid mice, mold and mismanagement in outpatient facilities. It was a shocking account to ordinary Americans who know of Walter Reed by its spit-shine, high-tech image, but especially to me. An embedded reporter who lost a hand in a grenade attack, I was treated at Walter Reed as an in-patient from December 16, 2003 to January 8, 2004, when I left for my home in Washington. I returned regularly to the hospital as an outpatient for 18 months, stopping often to visit friends who were living in the modern, clean Malogne House.

At Walter Reed, 'We're Going to Fix It'

At Walter Reed, 'We're Going to Fix It'
General Says He Will Oversee Repair of Soldiers' Lodging
By Ann Scott TysonWashington Post Staff WriterThursday, February 22, 2007; Page A06
A top Army general vowed yesterday to personally oversee the upgrading of Walter Reed Army Medical Center's Building 18, a dilapidated former hotel that houses wounded soldiers as outpatients.
Gen. Richard A. Cody, the Army vice chief of staff, used terminology similar to that of a military campaign to describe his plan to overhaul the broken building, including giving it a more "appropriate" name, and the sluggish bureaucracy for outpatient care.

FDA OKs battlefield life-saver

FDA OKs battlefield life-saver
Associated Press

WASHINGTON — A plastic shunt that can temporarily rejoin the severed blood vessels of soldiers wounded on the battlefield has won federal approval after an expedited review urged by the military.
Citing the critical need for the shunt, the Food and Drug Administration took less than a week to review and clear for marketing the Temporary Limb Salvage Shunt. The FDA did so on Feb. 9 after consultations with the Air Force.

Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration At Army's Top Medical Facility

Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration At Army's Top Medical Facility
By Dana Priest and Anne Hull
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, February 18, 2007; Page A01

Behind the door of Army Spec. Jeremy Duncan's room, part of the wall is torn and hangs in the air, weighted down with black mold. When the wounded combat engineer stands in his shower and looks up, he can see the bathtub on the floor above through a rotted hole. The entire building, constructed between the world wars, often smells like greasy carry-out. Signs of neglect are everywhere: mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses.

Replacement parts: Technology takes off

Replacement parts: Technology takes off
By Sarah Cox
There is good news for those approximately 1.8 million people living with limb loss in the United States today: They no longer have to use leather straps that encircle waists or shoulders; they no longer are saddled with hickory peg-legs or, as in the case of a woman in her 30s in 1923, an entire wooden leg encased in horsehide that weighed so much she basically was hindered as much by the prosthesis as she was by her limb loss.
Virginia Prosthetics, established in 1966, has helped promote the fitting of limbs that now affix to the residual limb with silicone suction sockets and are made of energy-storing carbon fiber and imbedded microprocessors. The carbon fiber returns, through the gait, 80 to 90 percent of the energy put into the feet, explains owner and president J. Douglas Call.