One Year after Walter Reed, Much Still Needs to Be Done (Rep. John Murtha)

One year ago, we learned about the deplorable conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Our military/civilian doctors and nurses are outstanding. My concern has been with the leadership of this department, who were starving for years the base operations and other essential services of this premier medical facility.

I visit Walter Reed and Bethesda repeatedly, and constantly ask them what they need. They were intimidated by this civilian leadership.

Almost two-thirds of our amputees receive care at Walter Reed, yet we had to fight the department for years to get the amputee center built. We provided millions of dollars for maintenance costs, yet the department resisted our efforts to maintain and modernize medical facilities. These aren’t problems with funding, these are policy problems, and they are intolerable.

Secretary Gates is getting great care today because we have great care givers and because of the work that Congress has done to ensure that our troops have the resources they need. Last year, we provided $400 million for Family Advocacy Programs. Today’s budget cuts this funding by 39 percent.

We’ve seen a deterioration of military recruitment standards. Since the invasion of Iraq, the percentage of Army recruits with a high school diploma has decreased from 94 percent to 71 percent. Before the war began, 4.6 percent of Army recruits required a waiver for a criminal record; today that figure has risen to 11.2 percent.

We’re still continuing the policy of Stop-Loss, five years after the fact.

I have said repeatedly that this war falls on one-half of one-percent of the American public. Even this is not quite true. Only 63 percent of our active Army has been deployed in this conflict. The remainders have been deployed over, and over, and over again.

I received a letter this week from a young Sergeant. He is on his fourth deployment and knows fellow soldiers that are on their fifth. His concern is that we are grossly mismanaging personnel. He says the Army is not reaching out to those that haven’t been deployed. We’re asking Secretary Gates to look into this problem, and we’re going to do the same.

Our troops and their families deserve better.