Amputee center being built at Walter Reed

[Arger68]

WASHINGTON - Construction is expected to begin this spring on a state-of-the-art rehabilitation facility for amputee soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center even though the venerable military hospital is scheduled to close in five years.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060117/ap_on_he_me/amputee_soldiers

Lovely, just lovely

[Surya Gayatri]

1. Just more astonishing DoD war planning! n/t

[onehandle]

2. What Bush would say upon hearing this news--->

"I bet this center cost an arm and a leg."

[Surya Gayatri]

3. Oh, now that's black, really black,

but just what we've come to expect from the "Great Orator". :rofl: SG

[Ilsa]

4. You are so right. He can be clever at times, but in the most cruel way.

He has a hurtful and cruel sense of humor. He usually looks to demean others with his comments, or jsut get nasty, like the hanging comment for MLK's portrait, and that time he made a nasty comment about a woman's blond hair when he was campagning in 2004, remarking that it was a "bottle-blond" or something. With an attitude like that, I'm surprised the twins weren't lost to suicide.

[Surya Gayatri]

7. Who knows, they may 've

had their stomachs pumped a few times. Having a heartless cretin like that for a father would make anybody prone to suicidal thoughts. Their substance abuse seems to point to some unresolved issues. SG

[Ezlivin]

5. They're not dead veterans, that's all that matters

Dead veterans are bad press; crippled ones are ignored.

This war is creating vast numbers of disabled veterans. The cost to our country for this illegal war is too high to continue.

I'm a disabled veteran and I sincerely wish that I was the last one ever.

[RedSock]

6. advertisement

[Surya Gayatri]

9. Bless you for your service,

and make your voice heard. Those who have already been there, and who have the scars to show for it, have a more powerful and credible argument than anyone else. Speak out where and when you can! SG

[Rebellious Republican]

16. Welcome home shipmate!

I am assuming by your homepage that you were in the silent service. I was in P3 Orions, the opposite end of the spectrum. Fair winds and following seas shipmate.

[superconnected]

8. 10 million is peanuts.

Bush and Cheney should DONATE it from their personal coffers. They have billions, they are responsible for the amputees.

[Orsino]

10. I know who they should name it after. n/t

[benddem]

11. there's an article

in Newsweek on line that says that the center is being built in SanAntonio. It isn't being built with govt. funds it is by private investment.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10842565/site/newsweek/
Since Walter Reed is on the closure list...I doubt the yahoo story.

[MADem]

12. No, the story is accurate

But the amputee center is now considered temporary, to serve soldiers for only five to seven years due to the BRAC decision, according to the Army Corps of Engineers.

"Only the Defense Department could really have done this," said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., who argued for months that the long-needed amputee center was a good reason to keep Walter Reed open. "This kind of cosmic change would stop any other agency from moving forward."

Walter Reed is supposed to move to an expanded suburban military hospital in 2011, under the BRAC recommendations President Bush signed last year.

"The transitional center is necessary to provide the best possible care for our amputee patients in the five years between now and 2011, when Walter Reed is scheduled to move to Bethesda (Md.) and merge some functions with the National Naval Medical Center," Walter Reed officials said in a statement.

------
You'd think they'd engage their damn BRAINS and just put the thing over at BETHESDA in the FIRST place, but noooo....this is all about pork, friends. I don't think they should close WR anyway--it served an ENORMOUS retiree population that live in and around DC...and the transportation to Bethesda is more of a challenge for those using metro and buses.

[Moondog]

14. I always found it easier

to get to Bethesda / NIH on the Metro (has its own stop on the Red Line) than to Walter Reed to which one basically has to drive.

[MADem]

17. A lot of the folks using the services live in and around Georgia Ave

and they can walk or take the bus down the street. It's those guys that are getting hosed. Hopefully they will run a bus from the old WR campus to Bethesda for those folks.

[Lance_Boyle]

13. I think this is the one Don Imus is soliciting funds to support

He's been talking it up on his morning radio show for the past couple of weeks. fallenheroes.org, I think. While it's absolutely SHAMEFUL that the private sector is having to do this, and not the government that cost these kids their limbs in the first place, it does strike me as a particularly worthwhile charity.

[barb162]

15. All these young people without limbs for no reason

Even if they were drunken driving and got in an accident and lost a limb, it wouldn't be justified or fair. But this is because of a phony war

[ikojo]

18. Um....if things are going so well in Iraq

Why is there a need for an amputee center? Will the controlled media show us the ribbon cutting ceremony for this wing?


:sarcasm: