Army Program Reinvents Wounded Care

[unhappycamper]

Army Program Reinvents Wounded Care
November 06, 2008
Armed Forces Press Service|by Fred W. Baker III

WASHINGTON - When the first news stories broke in February 2007 detailing a breakdown in Soldier and Family care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., senior Army leaders scrambled into action.

Headlines screamed of neglect as the nation's highest leaders, from the Pentagon, Congress and the White House demanded an answer as to how this could have happened.

In fact, there was no single answer. And Army officials soon discovered that the problem was systemic and not isolated at Walter Reed.

Five-and-a-half years of combat on two fronts, coupled with historically high combat survival rates, had thrust hundreds of soldiers, battered and broken, and their families, into a bureaucratic health and rehabilitation system that had all but lay dormant for nearly 30 years.

"Once we became engaged in the two wars, when we started to look for those rehabilitative capabilities, they really didn't exist," said Army Brig. Gen. Gary Cheek, the Army's assistant surgeon general for warrior care and transition. "We didn't take good care of the families. We weren't watching out for the soldiers. ... We also really didn't know what was going on."


Rest of article at: http://www.military.com/news/article/army-news/army-program-reinvents-wounded-care.html?col=1186032369115



uhc comment: It's shit like this that makes me nuts. We invaded and occupied Afghanistan six years ago. We invaded and occupied Iraq five and a half years ago. And these fuckers did nothing until 2007. What's wrong with this picture?