USA Today: Mold infests Okla. barracks for wounded

[marmar]

Soldiers: Mold infests Okla. barracks for wounded


By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY



LAWTON, Okla. — Mold infests the barracks that were set up here a year ago for wounded soldiers after poor conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center triggered a systemwide overhaul, soldiers say.

Twenty soldiers, who spoke to USA TODAY early last week, said their complaints about mold and other problems went unheeded for months. They also said they had been ordered not speak about the conditions at Fort Sill.

Officers at the Army base last week ordered that ventilation ducts in two barracks be replaced and soldiers be surveyed, anonymously if they wished, about any concerns. Maj. Gen. Peter Vangjel, the commanding officer, said it was "inappropriate" for soldiers to be ordered not to talk about the mold.

"We're going in and we're going to take care of this for these guys," he said over the weekend.

Images of mold growing on walls of wounded-soldier bedrooms at Walter Reed last year, along with issues of bureaucratic delays in health care, led to an overhaul of the Army's wounded-care system. Warrior Transition Units (WTU) were created to expedite the care and treatment of wounded and ailing soldiers. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2008-08-17-mold_N.htm

[Captain Hilts]

1. It can happen anywhere. Like the DC Ritz Carlton apt. bldg Michael Jordan lived in. nt

[Karenina]

4. True, that! However, it IS a health threat

ESPECIALLY to those whose immune systems are compromised.

[Nikki Stone1]

2. Privatized?

Sounds like it.

[Hubert Flottz]

3. They needed that money for more important things like

Paying for Bush's family to go to China...