I saw the debate this week on Iraq in the Congress. Some of it in the House and some of it in the Senate. I saw Republican after Republican get up and talk about how we can't cut funding because it would be bad for the morale of the troops. We can't pass resolutions that express disapproval about the escalation of troops in Iraq because the troops would be hurt by it. If we support the troops, how can we not support the mission?
Anyone read the Washington Post article:
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.
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.
The common perception of Walter Reed is of a surgical hospital that shines as the crown jewel of military medicine. But 5 1/2 years of sustained combat have transformed the venerable 113-acre institution into something else entirely -- a holding ground for physically and psychologically damaged outpatients. Almost 700 of them -- the majority soldiers, with some Marines -- have been released from hospital beds but still need treatment or are awaiting bureaucratic decisions before being discharged or returned to active duty.
They suffer from brain injuries, severed arms and legs, organ and back damage, and various degrees of post-traumatic stress. Their legions have grown so exponentially -- they outnumber hospital patients at Walter Reed 17 to 1 -- that they take up every available bed on post and spill into dozens of nearby hotels and apartments leased by the Army. The average stay is 10 months, but some have been stuck there for as long as two years.
More, tragically, at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/17/AR2007021701172.html How these Republican Senators can actually stand up on the floor of the US House or the US Senate and actually accuse anyone of 'not supporting the troops' is beyond me. It is an incalculable act of supreme hypocrisy. Senator Graham issues the following in a statement that is on his Senate website:
"Majority Leader Reid has and will continue to stifle debate and limit the Senate to a single option which is a precursor to retreat. Senator Reid knows an overwhelming majority of Senators will vote for the Gregg resolution which states that cutting off funding will undermine our troops and the war effort. It has broad, bipartisan support.Senator John McCain has this statement on his Senate website:
"We must provide the resources and support that our fighting men and women need as they carry out their mission in Iraq. Congress should never falter in ensuring that our commanders and those under them have everything they deem necessary."I wonder where the resources where for that wounded man at Walter Reed who got to the hospital, still groggy with the pain medication he had taken on the flight over, suffering from a Traumatic Brain Injury and the loss of an eye due to an AK47 blast he took and was given a map and told to find his own hospital room because there was no one to guide him to it. Where were the resources for these troops?
Senator Kerry, whatever it takes, make them see this. Rub their noses in it. Ask them how they can possibly take to the floor of the Senate all juiced up about how the non-binding resolution that merely says that the Congress disapproves of more soldiers going into the shooting galleries in Iraq shows no support for the troops. Ask them, again and again, where the hell the support for the troops is when they come home. Ask them if the they feel anything at all about that? Ask them where the urgency and the talk of funding is when it comes to taking care of people who have done everything asked of them, bled for their country and are now asking that country to do what it said it would do and support them in their needs. Ask them, again and again and again. Cuz I don't think they have an answer, I really don't.
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