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IS THIS ANY WAY TO TREAT OUR TROOPS? THE

CARE AND CONDITIONS OF WOUNDED SOLDIERS AT WALTER REED

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY

AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MARCH 5, 2007

Serial No. 110–40

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

http://www.oversight.house.gov

(II)

COMMITTEE ON OVERSISGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California, Chairman

TOM LANTOS, California

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland

PETER WELCH, Vermont

TOM DAVIS, Virginia

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

BILL SALI, Idaho

——— ———

PHIL SCHILIRO, Chief of Staff

PHIL BARNETT, Staff Director

EARLEY GREEN, Chief Clerk

DAVID MARIN, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts, Chairman

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

DAN BURTON, Indiana

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

DAVE TURK, Staff Director

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on March 5, 2007 .............................................................................. 1

Statement of:

Geren, Peter, Under Secretary, U.S. Army .................................................... 1

Kiley, Lieutenant General Kevin C., M.D., U.S. Army Surgeon General;

Major General George W. Weightman, Commander, Walter Reed Army

Medical Center; and Cynthia A. Bascetta, Director, Health Care, U.S.

Government Accountability Office ............................................................... 98

Bascetta, Cynthia A. ................................................................................. 113

Kiley, Lieutenant General Kevin C. ........................................................ 98

Weightman, Major General George W. .................................................... 112

Schoomaker, General Peter, Chief of Staff of the Army; and General

Richard A. Cody, Army Vice Chief of Staff ................................................. 159

Cody, General Richard A. ......................................................................... 159

Schoomaker, General Peter ...................................................................... 159

Shannon, Staff Sergeant John Daniel; Annette McLeod, wife of Corporal

Wendell ‘‘Dell’’ McLeod; and Specialist Jeremy Duncan ........................... 37

Duncan, Specialist Jeremy ....................................................................... 51

McLeod, Annette ....................................................................................... 44

Shannon, Staff Sergeant John Daniel ..................................................... 37

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Bascetta, Cynthia A., Director, Health Care, U.S. Government Accountability Office, prepared statement of ........................................................... 115

Davis, Hon. Tom, a Representative in Congress from the State of Virginia, prepared statement of ........................................................................ 35

Kiley, Lieutenant General Kevin C., M.D., U.S. Army Surgeon General,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 101

McLeod, Annette, wife of Corporal Wendell ‘‘Dell’’ McLeod, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 46

Shannon, Staff Sergeant John Daniel, prepared statement of ..................... 40

Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Connecticut, prepared statement of ........................................................ 30

Tierney, Hon. John F., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Massachusetts, various prepared statements ......................................... 3

Waxman, Hon. Henry A., a Representative in Congress from the State

of California, various prepared statements ................................................ 57

Yarmuth, Hon. John A., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Kentucky, prepared statement of ............................................................ 82

(1)

IS THIS ANY WAY TO TREAT OUR TROOPS?

THE CARE AND CONDITIONS OF WOUNDED

SOLDIERS AT WALTER REED

MONDAY, MARCH 5, 2007

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY AND FOREIGN

AFFAIRS,

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m., Joel

Auditorium, Walter Reed Medical Center, Washington, DC, Hon.

John F. Tierney (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Tierney, Waxman, Cummings, Lynch,

Yarmuth, Braley, Norton, McCollum, Cooper, Van Hollen, Hodes,

Welch, Shays, Platts, Duncan, Turner, and Foxx.

Also present: Representatives Davis of Virginia; Cummings, and

Norton.

Staff present: Brian Cohen, senior investigator and policy advisor; Margaret Daum, counsel; Molly Gulland, assistant communications director; Earley Green, chief clerk; Leneal Scott, information

systems manager; Dave Turk, staff director; Davis Hake, staff assistant; Andy Wright, clerk; David Marin, minority staff director;

A. Brooke Bennett, minority counsel; Grace Washbourne, minority

senior professional staff member; Nick Palarino, minority senior investigator and policy advisor; and Benjamin Chance, minority

clerk.

Mr. TIERNEY. A quorum being present, the Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs’ field hearing entitled, ‘‘Is This

Any Way to Treat Our Troops? The Care and Condition of Wounded Soldiers At Walter Reed,’’ will come to order. I ask unanimous

consent that the chairman and ranking minority member of the

committee as well as the ranking minority member of the subcommittee be allotted 5 minutes to make opening statements.

Without objection, that is ordered.

I would also like to first introduce Under Secretary Peter Geren

who would like to welcome people here in a brief statement.

STATEMENT OF PETER GEREN, UNDER SECRETARY, U.S.

ARMY

Mr. GEREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee. I am the Under Secretary of the Army now. Next Friday I will be the Acting Secretary of the Army. Last Friday night

the Secretary asked me to take on the health care issues for the

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Army in the meantime, not wait until I become Acting Secretary

next Friday.

On behalf of the Army I want to welcome all of you to Walter

Reed. As a former Member of Congress, I want you to know I appreciate and value the role that the Congress and this committee

plays in the life of our Army. We treasure the partnership we have

with the Congress. We understand that the Constitution has forged

the partnership, from the beginning of this country until as long

as this country lasts, between the Congress and our U.S. Army.

We have let some soldiers down. And working with the Congress

and with the leadership of the Army all the way down to the lowest

ranking civilian or uniformed military, we’re going to fix that problem. In fact we’re in the process of fixing it. Your involvement is

going to help us do that.

We’re glad so many of you are here today showing this kind of

interest in Walter Reed. So many of you have been out here many,

many times, been a part of the life of Walter Reed. We’ve worked

with Members and staff over the last several years in dealing with

related problems, and we appreciate very much the role that the

Congress plays.

There is a ballad that is part of the soldier’s creed: I will never

leave a fallen comrade. That is on the battlefield, it’s in the hospital that’s in the outpatient clinic. And that is part of the soul of

every soldier. And anytime that vow is broken, I can tell you it

hurts the heart of the Army.

The men and women at Walter Reed are dedicated professionals.

They make considerable sacrifice, both financial and personal, to

meet the needs of the patients here at Walter Reed, to meet the

needs of the families. They provide excellent health care. And when

it comes to wounded warriors they set the standard for the world

for health care. And they do this and turn down offers in private

industry to make several times more money. They do it because

they believe in the soldier’s creed. They’re dedicated to their fallen

comrades and it hurts them deeply when they see any member of

this service be slighted and not receive the care they deserve.

So on behalf of the staff here, I also offer this welcome. They look

forward to working with you. I want to thank them for their work

and, again, Mr. Chairman, thank you and Chairman Waxman and

ranking members. I appreciate your being here. Thank you for your

time.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Geren.

Little bit of house cleaning here first. I ask unanimous consent

that the hearing record be kept open for 5 business days so that

all members of the subcommittee be allowed to submit a written

statement for the record. Without objection, that’s ordered.

I also ask that the following written statements be made part of

the hearing record: The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America;

Joe Wilson, Social Workers Psychiatric Continuity Service; Sergeant David Yancey, Mississippi National Guard; Sergeant Archie

and Barbara Benware; and John Allen, former Sergeant First

Class, North Carolina National Guard. Without objection, so ordered.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. I also ask unanimous consent that the gentleman

from Maryland, Representative Elijah Cummings, and the delegate

from the District of Columbia, Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton, members on the full committee on Oversight and Government

Reform, be allowed to participate in the hearing. In accordance

with our committee practices, they’ll be recognized after all members of the subcommittee. Without objection, so ordered.

So, getting down to business, let me first and foremost welcome

everybody here and thank the brave soldiers at Walter Reed for allowing us to have this hearing at this facility. Thank you all for

your service and your patriotism and your courage. Everybody here

is mindful of what you’ve done and how you’ve answered the call

for this country, without distinction from party or any other factor.

You are an inspiration to all of us. And from the bottom of our

hearts, we appreciate all you have done for our country and for

each of us.

I also want to welcome the members of the National Security and

Foreign Affairs Subcommittee. It was vital we convene a hearing

at Walter Reed so we would be able to see and hear for ourselves

whether or not what we’ve seen reported is actually accurate and

true. While I intend that this subcommittee will conduct hearings

and investigations into many areas of defense, homeland security,

and foreign policy, I can think of no more important topic for our

very first hearing than the proper care of our Nation’s wounded

soldiers.

I would like to start by playing a short video clip from the

WashingtonPost.com Web site that I think indicates for us the seriousness of this matter.

[Video clip.]

Mr. TIERNEY. Walter Reed has long been perceived as the model

of taking care of our Nation’s soldiers when they return from battle. The Under Secretary is absolutely correct that the people respect and honor the service of the medical personnel and other

staff that are here at the hospital. But when we look at the unsanitary conditions and some of the other situations in the living quarters, we find it appalling.

We also realize that not only is it flat wrong, but that it is the

tip of the iceberg. Far too often, the soldiers at Walter Reed wait

months, if not years, in sort of a limbo; and they must navigate

through broken administrative processes and layers upon layers of

bureaucracy to get basic tasks accomplished.

Today we’re going to hear firsthand of the conditions and lack of

respect for our soldiers and their families. I want to thank Staff

Sergeant Dan Shannon, Corporal Dell McLeod and his wife Annette, and Specialist Jeremy Duncan for your bravery, for your

service, for your sacrifice, and for sharing your experiences with us

here on this panel today.

I understand that you are frustrated. I think we all understand

that, and we respect that fact and we all understand why you are.

Let me be clear: This is absolutely the wrong way to treat our

troops, and serious reforms need to happen immediately.

Over the past month, the perception of Walter Reed has gone

from the flagship of our military health system to a glaring problem. This subcommittee wants some answers.

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I want to thank Major General Weightman, the former commander of Walter Reed; Lieutenant General Kiley, the Army’s current Surgeon General and also a former commander at Walter

Reed; General Cody, the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army and the

Army’s point person on this issue; and General Peter Schoomaker,

the Chief of Staff of the Army, for being with us today. .

I look forward to hearing from all of you why our wounded soldiers have not been getting the care and the living conditions that

they deserve. I also want to hear what we’re going to do about it

in the future.

I want to stress that this is an investigative hearing and not an

inquisition. Our purpose is to get to the bottom of things and to get

honest answers, and it will take our cooperative efforts, all of us

working together to make sure that a broken system is fixed and

fixed quickly.

That all being said, I do have serious concerns and many, many

questions. First, is this just another horrific consequence of the terrible planning that went into our invasion of Iraq?

Did the fact that our top civilian leaders predicted a short war,

where we’d be greeted as liberators, lead to a lack of planning in

terms of adequate resources and facilities devoted to the care of our

wounded soldiers?

Are we headed down the same path again with the President’s

surge? Or are we prepared this time for the increase of injuries, patients and wounded veterans? What concrete steps have been taken

and are being taken, as a reaction to the surge, to make sure that

every soldier gets cared for properly?

Did an ideological push for privatization put the care of our

wounded heroes at risk? A September 2006 memorandum that this

committee has obtained describes how the Army’s decision to privatize was causing an exodus of ‘‘highly skilled and experienced

personnel’’ from Walter Reed and that there was a fear that ‘‘patient care services are at risk of mission failure.’’

Did the fact that Walter Reed is scheduled to close in 2011 because of BRAC, the Base Realignment and Closure process, contribute to unacceptable conditions at Building 18 and elsewhere?

And with a Defense Department budget of $450 billion and more,

this is not a case of there not being enough money to take care of

our wounded soldiers; this is a case of the lack of the proper

prioritization and focus.

More and more evidence is appearing to indicate that senior officials were aware for several years of the types of problems that

were recently exposed in the excellent reporting by the Washington

Post reporters.

These are not new or sudden problems. Rats and cockroaches

don’t burrow and infest overnight. Mold and holes in ceilings don’t

occur in a week. And complaints of bureaucratic indifference have

been reported for years.

Moreover, this committee, under former Chairman Davis and

Chairman Shays, have been investigating over the past several

years problems faced by our wounded soldiers, including those at

Walter Reed. And I want to thank those members for their leadership so far.

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I also want to thank Congressman Peter Welch from Vermont

and others who insisted that this committee have its first hearing

out here at Walter Reed so we could see firsthand the conditions

in question.

Where does the buck stop? There appears to be a pattern developing here that we’ve seen before: first deny, then cover up, and

then designate a fall guy. In this case, I have concerns that the

Army is literally trying to whitewash over the problems.

I appreciate the first steps that have been taken to rectify the

problems at Walter Reed and to hold those responsible accountable.

We need a sustained focus here, and much more needs to be done.

I also, unfortunately, fear that these problems go well beyond the

walls of Walter Reed, and that there are problems systemic

throughout the military health care system. As we send more and

more troops into Iraq and Afghanistan, these problems are only

going to get worse, not better, and we should be prepared to deal

with them.

Let me conclude by thanking all the soldiers who all able to be

with us here today for their sacrifice on all of our behalf. We all

agree that our soldiers deserve the best possible care. So let’s give

them the respect and gratitude that they rightly deserve. They’ve

earned it with their dedication, with their patriotism, and with

their sacrifice.

With that, I yield to Mr. Shays or Mr. Davis for an opening statement.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to defer my

statement. I know we have a short agenda. We will just have one

on each side, so I welcome Mr. Davis to make our statement.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you, Mr. Shays. And let me thank

Chairman Waxman and Chairman Tierney for agreeing to convene

this hearing at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

For too long, complaints about substandard and disjointed care

for wounded soldiers have been treated as distant abstractions.

Here, no one should be distracted by numbing statistics, soulless

technical jargon, impersonal flow charts or rosy ‘‘good news’’ action

plans. Here we get an unfiltered look at a torturous system that

has proved so far stubbornly incapable of reaching the standard of

care this Nation is honor-bound to provide returning warriors.

We meet on the grounds of a world-class, world-renowned medical institution. Walter Reed has a venerable tradition of scientific

advancement and clinical success. No one cared for here yesterday,

today, or tomorrow should doubt the skill and dedication of the doctors, nurses and administrative staff who labor every day to save

lives and repair broken bodies and minds. The problems that bring

us here today are the product of institutional indifference, not a

lack of individual commitment.

Recent reports of decrepit facilities and dysfunctional outpatient

procedures at Walter Reed amplified oversight work this committee

started in 2004. Pay and personnel systems—it got that wrong far

more often than right—were inflicting financial friendly fire on

those returning from war. Some of those erroneous dunning notices

found their way here. Men and women already struggling to regain

their physical health were also being forced to fight their own government to protect their financial well-being.

Members of the National Guard and Reserve units have a particularly difficult time navigating this Byzantine, stovepiped,

paper-choked process that was never intended to deal with so many

for so long. The charts that we have lay out only part of the

MedHold system. Apparently, among other prewar planning errors,

the Pentagon somehow failed to anticipate that deploying unprecedented numbers of Reserve component troops into combat would

produce an unprecedented flow of casualties.

As a result, the Defense Department has been scrambling ever

since to lash together last-century procedures and systems to care

for returning citizen-soldiers. But institutional habits and biases

have proven remarkably impervious to demands for change. It took

well over a year to stand up an ombudsman program to help guide

soldiers and their families through a complex, confusing, and frustrating medical and administrative labyrinth involving mountains

of forms and multiple Army commands.

Last October a systems analysis review team inspection of Walter Reed found no process to track submitted work orders, particularly for Building 18. They pronounced the facility otherwise safe

and secure. That must have been remarkably fast-growing mold

that we found in the Washington Post, in Building 18.

Two years ago, the Government Reform Committee heard testimony that concluded Army guidance for processing patients in

medical hold units does not clearly define organizational responsibilities or performance standards. The Army has not adequately

educated soldiers about medical and personnel processing or adequately trained Army personnel responsible for helping soldiers.

The Army lacks an integrated medical and personnel system to

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provide visibility over injured soldiers, and, as a result, sometimes

actually loses track of soldiers and where they are in the process.

And the Army lacks compassionate customer-friendly service.

The last one says it all and, sadly, appears to be as true today

as in 2005.

And these problems are not unique to Walter Reed. Here, uncertainty over the use of contractors or decisions by the Base Closure

and Realignment Commission may have contributed to staff turnover and attrition, but the crushing complexity and glacial pace of

outpatient procedures and medical evaluation boards are Armywide problems. Building 18 is one visible symptom of a far more

insidious and pervasive malady. All the plaster and paint in the

world won’t cure a system that seems institutionally predisposed to

treat wounded soldiers like inconveniences rather than heroes.

On the long road home from war, this is a place wounded soldiers and their families should be embraced, not abandoned. They

should be healed and nurtured, not left to languish or fend for

themselves against a faceless bureaucratic Hydra.

What will transform this dysfunctional uncaring arrangement

into the compassionate effective medical and military operation

wounded soldiers deserve? All our witnesses today will help find

the answer to that question.

Those on our first panel speak from hard personal experiences.

They have every reason to be disillusioned, even bitter about frustrations and indignities they endured or witnessed while captive to

a broken process. Their testimony is one more selfless act of bravery, and we are profoundly grateful for their willingness to speak

out.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Tom Davis follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Davis.

The subcommittee will now receive some testimony from the witnesses before us today. I would like to start by introducing those

witness on the first panel. We have Staff Sergeant John Daniel—

or Dan Shannon—a resident of Walter Reed since he was injured

near Ramadi, Iraq in November 2004; we have Mrs. Annette

McLeod and her husband, Specialist Wendell ‘‘Dell’’ McLeod, Jr.

from Chesterfield, SC. Actually, Mrs. McLeod will be testifying.

Dell is here with us today; Specialist Jeremy Duncan, currently an

outpatient at Walter Reed residence who was housed in Building

18.

Welcome to all of you. Thank you for coming and sharing your

experiences here today. It is the policy of this subcommittee to

swear you in before you testify. So I will ask you to please stand

and raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. TIERNEY. The record will please reflect that all of the witnesses so swore. I am going to ask that each of you now give a brief

opening statement. We will start from my left with Staff Sergeant

Shannon and Mrs. McLeod and Specialist Duncan. Statements are

5 minutes. If you can, please try to contain your remarks. Davis,

of the subcommittee staff, to my left, is going to throw something

in the air to get my attention when you get near that point in time.

I will give you a signal. We do want to allow you to fully express

yourselves.

Staff Sergeant Shannon, if you would please start.

STATEMENTS OF STAFF SERGEANT JOHN DANIEL SHANNON;

ANNETTE McLEOD, WIFE OF CORPORAL WENDELL ‘‘DELL’’

McLEOD; AND SPECIALIST JEREMY DUNCAN

STATEMENT OF STAFF SERGEANT JOHN DANIEL SHANNON

Sergeant SHANNON. I hope that I can stay within those time constraints and, of course, more information with the written statement I submitted.

Mr. TIERNEY. All of the written statements have been entered in

the record and will be there. Is your microphone on, sir? Thank

you. You might want to move it a little bit closer to you if you could

and that will be helpful.

Sergeant SHANNON. Better?

Mr. TIERNEY. Yes.

Sergeant SHANNON. All right.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to testify today on issues at Walter Reed Medical Center.

My name is Staff Sergeant John Daniel Shannon. I do go by my

middle name.

What has brought me to speak is my personal ethic as a professional soldier. I will not see young men and women who have had

their lives shattered in service to their country receive anything

less than dignity and respect.

I was wounded while serving in Iraq with the 1st Battalion

503rd infantry regiment. We were conducting operations out of

Habiniyah, Iraq and had moved to ‘‘Combat Outpost,’’ a small compound on the southeast side of Ramadi. On November 13, 2004, I

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suffered a gunshot wound to the head from an AK–47 during a firefight with insurgent forces near Saddam’s mosque. The result of

that wound was primarily a traumatic brain injury and the loss of

my left eye.

I arrived at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center’s ward 58 on

or about the November 16, 2004. I was discharged in outpatient

status on approximately November 18, 2004. Upon my discharge,

hospital staff gave me a photocopied map of the installation and

told me to go to the Mologne House where I would live while in

outpatient. I was extremely disoriented and wandered around

while looking for someone to direct me to the Mologne House. And

eventually I found it.

I had been given a couple of weeks’ appointments and some other

paperwork upon leaving ward 58, and I went to all of my appointments during that time. After these appointments, I sat in my

room for another couple of weeks, wondering when someone would

contact me about my continuing medical care. Finally I went

through the paperwork I was given and started calling all the

phone numbers until I reached my case manager who promptly got

me the appointments I needed. I soon made contact with the Medical Holding Company. At that time, I was then processed and assigned to the 2nd Platoon MedHold Company.

I was informed that my Medical Evaluation Board/Physical Evaluation Board would not continue until my face was put back together. This process is important to me because the results of the

evaluation determines the percentage of my disability. During the

time my injuries were being fixed, posttraumatic stress disorder

symptoms started surfacing.

I was informed that the medical retirement process would not

proceed until the PTSD was medicinally controlled. Months later,

I was informed that my medical board paperwork, my medical

board had to be restarted because my information had been lost.

I began meeting with my new physical evaluation counselor Mr.

Giess in late January and early February. He informed that my

MEB needed to be stopped again until the plastic surgery and ocular prosthetic procedures were finished. Therefore, 2 years after

first being admitted to Walter Reed, I am hearing the same thing

about the process that I heard when I first began it 2 years ago.

I want to leave this place. I have seen so many soldiers get so

frustrated with the process that they will sign anything presented

to them just so they can get on with their lives. We have almost

no advocacy that is not working for the government; no one that

we can talk to about this process, who is knowledgeable and we can

trust, is going to give us fair treatment and informed guidance. My

physical evaluation counselor and the MEB/PEB process both here

work for the government and have its interests, not our interests,

in mind.

In my opinion, Danny Soto, who works in the Mologne House as

an independent advocate for those of us going through the process,

is priceless in the assistance he gives, but he is only one man. The

system can’t be trusted. And soldiers get less than they deserve

from a system seemingly designed and run to cut the costs associated with fighting this war. The truly sad thing is that surviving

veterans from every war we’ve ever fought can tell the same basic

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story, a story about neglect, lack of advocacy, and frustration with

the military bureaucracy.

Thank you again for allowing me the opportunity to share my experiences with this committee.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Staff Sergeant.

[The prepared statement of Staff Sergeant Shannon follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. Mrs. McLeod.

STATEMENT OF ANNETTE L. McLEOD

Mrs. MCLEOD. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee,

thank you for holding this hearing today. My name is Annette

McLeod, and I am testifying today because my my husband Wendell has been through the nightmares of the Walter Reed Army

medical system. I am glad that you care about what happened to

my husband after he was injured in the line of duty, because for

a long time it seemed like I was the only one who cared. Certainly

the Army did not care. I didn’t even find out that he was injured

until he called me himself from the hospital in New Jersey. When

the Army realized that they had made a mistake and sent him to

Fort Dix instead of Walter Reed, they transferred him.

On September 23, 2004, Wendell was deployed on the Iraqi border and the 1/178th Field Artillery out of Greenville, SC. He had

been a sergeant with the National Guard for 16 years when he was

activated for this deployment. About 10 months into his tour he

was hit in the head by a steel cargo door of an 18-wheeler while

climbing in for inventory. The injuries were serious enough that he

had to be evacuated to Germany under heavy medication. And

after the hospital mix-up I just mentioned, he was sent to his

apartment complex leased at Walter Reed.

I took a leave from my job and went to see him in the capacity

of a nonmedical attendant, with Army approval. This was in August 2005. When I arrived to care for him, I found that he had no

appointments scheduled with any Walter Reed staff. He had been

assigned a social worker. But aside from the evaluation he received

after his injury, the Army had just left him without any evaluation

or opportunities and, therefore, no treatment. I complained and

had him transferred to the Mologne House where he could get

some help. He had back and shoulder injuries and mental problems. After being admitted to the Mologne House, he was tested for

brain functioning comprehension. I remember how medicated he

was when they gave him the test. Later the Army said the tests

were inconclusive because he didn’t try hard enough. We waited for

4 months to get those results.

He is a high school graduate. As I said before, he served in the

National Guard for 161⁄2 years, but the Army refuses to acknowledge that he suffered a brain injury. He freely told the Army that

he was a Title I math and English student in grade school, meaning that he needed extra help with reading and math. But the

Army has taken this information and used it against him. Over the

months, we have listened in disbelief as the Army interpreted Title

I math and English to mean that he has a learning disability. He

was considered fit enough to serve in the National Guard for 16

years. He was fit enough for deployment. But now they are saying

his mental problems he had before he went to Iraq.

In January 2006, he was sent to a neurological care facility in

Virginia for 10 weeks, at my urging. Before he transferred, he received several shots in his back for his back injury. I was assured

by the Army that this was the first of many treatments. But for

10 weeks while he was in Virginia, he didn’t receive any more

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cine, which he had no trouble with before, that required blood work

every month to monitor his body’s response. The required blood

work was never performed and he had developed an allergic reaction to the medication, from which he sustained liver damage and

gained 25 pound during those 10 weeks.

Back at Walter Reed, a doctor ordered an MRI to check the condition of his shoulder, but the case manager refused to do the MRI.

Her reason was that it would cost the Army too much money. And

the only followup for Wendell’s back injury was the decision of the

Army that he suffers from degenerative disk disease, a preexisting

condition that they claim was unrelated to injuries overseas.

On October 28th, the Army and the National Guard retired him.

He suffers from episodes of anxiety, forgetfulness, and very bad

mood swings. He walks with a cane and with a limp.

Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee, American soldiers

are injured every day in operations overseas. Every day, family

members learn that their loved ones are coming home to them different than when they left. I am here for Wendell, but I am also

here because family members should not have to go through this

with a loved one that we have already been through. I thank you

again for the opportunity to tell my story.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mrs. McLeod.

[The prepared statement of Mrs. McLeod follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. Specialist Jeremy Duncan has opted not to give a

statement so much as to respond to questions, and since we’re moving on into the question and answer period now and we’ll be under

the 5-minute rule, alternating from one side to the other, I thought,

Specialist Duncan, that I might start just by asking you, if you are

willing to talk about it, could you tell us and this panel a little bit

about what chain of events led you to become a patient at Walter

Reed?

STATEMENT OF SPECIALIST JEREMY DUNCAN

Specialist DUNCAN. I myself was deployed in Iraq in Samara

with the 101st 3rd Brigade reconnaissance. During patrol, came

across an IED. I got blown up, and I came here, and since then I

have no problems with medical care getting mixed from the problems I have had.

Mr. TIERNEY. What were the nature of your injuries?

Specialist DUNCAN. I had fractured my neck, almost lost my left

arm, I got titanium drawn, lost left ear, and loss of sight in the left

eye.

Mr. TIERNEY. Now I think many of us first learned of your situation by reading the Washington Post and the description of the

physical conditions of Building 18 and the area where you were

staying. Could you tell us on the record here today about those conditions in your room of Building 18?

Specialist DUNCAN. The conditions in the room in my mind were

just—it was unforgivable for anybody to live—it wasn’t fit for anybody to live in a room like that. I know most soldiers have just

come out of recovery, have weaker immune systems. Black mold

can do damage to people, and the holes in the walls, I wouldn’t live

there even if I had to. It wasn’t fit for anybody.

Mr. TIERNEY. What did you do to try to get the room fixed?

Specialist DUNCAN. I contacted the building manager and informed them that there was an issue with my room. They told me

they would put it in the system for a work order. I did that. A

month went by. I asked them to do it again. He said he would put

it back in the system. That went on two or three times. Finally,

I had my chain of command from Fort Campbell who came and visited me, they seen it, made some phone calls to the person over

here at Walter Reed. I don’t know where it went and it still never

got fixed. That’s when I contacted the Washington Post.

Mr. TIERNEY. And after the Washington Post article was published?

Specialist DUNCAN. I was immediately moved from that room and

the next day they were renovating the room.

Mr. TIERNEY. Do you have any personal thoughts about other

ways that—to be put and implemented to assist soldiers that are

new to the facility here?

Specialist DUNCAN. As in what perspectives?

Mr. TIERNEY. How to assist them in the services of information

and getting that process working better than it apparently did for

you?

Specialist DUNCAN. Keep following on through and keep bugging

them about it. Let them know; keep letting them know until finally

somebody gets sick of it and it finally gets done.

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Mr. TIERNEY. Mrs. McLeod, you had a situation attempting to at

least bring attention to Dell’s condition and situation. Would you

share that with us? Did you make known that you had some issues

with his treatment and care? To whom did you go and what were

the results with that?

Mrs. MCLEOD. I was very persistent. I went to his case manager.

She even got tired of dealing with me. I went as far as the commanders. I went to the generals. Anybody that would listen to me,

I would talk.

Mr. TIERNEY. Who was the commander here at that point in

time? Was it General Farmer?

Mrs. MCLEOD. General Farmer, yes, sir.

Mr. TIERNEY. Did you go to General Farmer and express to him

the difficulties?

Mrs. MCLEOD. Yes, sir, I did. I was at his office door several

days, and each time they turned me around.

Mr. TIERNEY. And how do you mean turn you around?

Mrs. MCLEOD. They told me he did not have time to talk to me,

there were other situations present at the time also. He knew of

the situation, he knew of some of the conditions, and each time I

went to him, they told me that he did not have time. He knew the

situation, there was nothing he could do to help me.

Mr. TIERNEY. At some point in time, did you have a chance to

meet with General Weightman?

Mrs. MCLEOD. I did. We were sitting in Burger King 1 day and

we were enjoying the day. He had a day of leave, and so we were

sitting there, and General Weightman walked up and my recollection he is a fine, honorable man. He had nothing to do with our

situation. He was, in my perspective, being punished because he

caught the tail end of it. Mr. Weightman, in my opinion, he was

just shoved into a situation that was already there. And because

there had to be the fall guy, he was there. He has never done anything to me. He never knew about my situation. When I asked him

questions, he was more than willing to give me answers that I

needed.

Mr. TIERNEY. I have about a minute left here. We have a rather

antiquated system on time watching, because our lights aren’t

working.

Staff Sergeant, I wanted to ask you, I know that at some point

you took matters in your own hands in trying to assist people that

were just coming new to the facility. Could you tell us about what

you did and what caused you to take that action?

Sergeant SHANNON. Well, after the young service member died

two doors down from me New Year’s of 2005, I had been looking

at the system as it stood, and we were having up to that point over

100 or over 200 personnel at one platoon run by one E–7. Typically

that type of level of authority is in charge of 30 to 40 personnel.

And they had no E–6s, my job, underneath them to help them keep

accountability of those personnel.

At that point I started asking my platoon sergeant at the time

to give me 25 percent of the people in the platoon and let me help

track them, because they’ve worked long hours just trying to keep

track of everyone.

53

The primary problem with the system, starting with the hospitals, it takes days for the paperwork to catch up with the Medical

Holding Company to let them know just that someone has gone

outpatient to the Mologne House. I had already been going to my

ward on a daily basis to see who was coming and going. When I

asked for a squad leader position, they moved over me, over to

work with a Sergeant First Class Alexander, in the OIF OEF platoon at the time; an outstanding NCO, by the way. And we implemented a program and eventually received 10 personnel to work

underneath us that we checked every ward in the hospital every

day, receiving the patient report from the Aero MedEvac Office

here in the hospital to let us know incoming and outgoing personnel. We would meet with incoming personnel, identify ourselves,

give them business cards, let them know if they had any questions

they can contact us.

We implemented a program to provide escorts from the hospital

over to the Mologne House; and the primary thing, some go to

other hospitals. We identified those that were staying here and

going outpatient to the Mologne House. When we identified them,

we were able to contact them in the Mologne House and give them

at that time a proper in processing.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you very much.

Sergeant SHANNON. You’re welcome.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Shays.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding these hearings

and thank you, our witnesses, for coming and testifying under

oath. You met with us before and you told us a number of stories

that will be very helpful to this committee. I want you, Staff Sergeant Shannon, to just describe one example of the kind of attitude

you encountered more often than you should have when you came

and asked for information 5 minutes before an office opened up. Do

you remember that story? Yes.

Sergeant SHANNON. I have an anger problem, and I think this is

common across the board with the patients at the hospital. It is

something these people are going to go through to some degree or

a another. Forgive me. I have been told there was a time constraint

problem, and I am talking quickly.

Mr. SHAYS. You needn’t talk quickly. Take your time.

Sergeant SHANNON. OK. In the course of the work I did at the

hospital, I became very familiar with how things worked in the

hospital. I became a person that would take a new soldier around

and showed them where they needed to go, who they needed talk

to. Because if I didn’t have the answers, I could send them to

where they needed to go.

Mr. SHAYS. I am just going to interrupt you. You described that

was quite common, that the soldiers helped other soldiers because

they weren’t getting the help from a caseworker or whomever.

Sergeant SHANNON. There just wasn’t the staff at the time. The

staff has increased significantly since that time, but still not

enough staff. But at that point I was showing a new soldier who

was also a patient in ophthalmology down to the office. It was 5

minutes before they opened. I just needed to ask the lady if a certain neuro-ophthamologist worked there. And she looked me up

and down, in my opinion like a piece of dirt and said, come see me

54

when we open. I won’t repeat what I said to her. I cussed a blue

streak, and it took everything I had not to jump over the counter

and smash the printer she was just using to copy.

Mr. SHAYS. Do you feel that was more typical, or an unusual

kind of experience?

Sergeant SHANNON. Human nature indicates that in the course

of any given day, in spite of your productivity, you will have the

easiest day you could have. What needs to not be forgotten here is

that there is a human issue involved with these guys, and the

problem—and I apologize, I talk a lot these days. It takes me a

while to get to the point. There is a hospital policy, that regardless

of hours, this is a written policy at this hospital, regardless of

whether they are on the clock or not, they will always provide assistance to patients when they require it. I found that out because

my wife worked here.

Mr. SHAYS. That’s the policy. You didn’t feel it happened?

Sergeant SHANNON. No.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me ask you this: Almost all of you have said the

help you received from the doctors when you received help was outstanding.

Sergeant SHANNON. Yes.

Mr. SHAYS. Would you agree, Sergeant? I mean—or Specialist

Duncan?

Specialist DUNCAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Mrs. McLeod, would you agree with that?

Mrs. MCLEOD. Fifty percent, yes.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me ask you this. You got the sense that you were

being pushed out of the Active Army, the military facilities, to the

VA. Describe to me your attitude about that and what positions

you took.

Let me start with you, Specialist Duncan. You don’t choose to

leave the military.

Specialist DUNCAN. I’m not leaving the military at all, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. This is something that is amazing to me. You

told the military you had no intention of retiring. What was their

reaction?

Specialist DUNCAN. They were kind of shocked. At first they said,

well, we don’t think you can stay in because of the conditions I had.

But like I said, some of the doctors here helped me find the actual

regulations on my conditions, and I meet the requirements to stay

in, and therefore I am staying in.

Mr. SHAYS. So you don’t have an issue of getting help from the

VA. But first, thank you for wanting to stay in, thank you for having to argue to stay in, and thank you for your incredible service,

all of you. And Mr. McLeod, thank you, sir.

Let me have both of you, Staff Sergeant, Mrs. McLeod, tell me

whether you would prefer to have VA help or—help and why?

Mrs. MCLEOD. In our situation, the VA has absolutely been wonderful to him, but he was only referred to the VA because they refused him treatment here. My goal was to have him to receive his

treatment because I felt that he would receive better treatment

when he was on Active Duty because they stand first priority.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. I only have 30 seconds left. Sergeant

Shannon.

55

Sergeant SHANNON. I will receive care anywhere I can get it.

Mr. SHAYS. What are you waiting for right now? Describe for us

what you are waiting for.

Sergeant SHANNON. I’m waiting for the plastic surgery to be done

to make my face capable of receiving a prosthetic eye and then they

will start the procedure to start a prosthetic eye. They have given

me the option to have the VA do it. I have a right to have it done

before I am retired. And as a workaholic, I am not taking 30 days

off from a job to have the surgery done.

Mr. SHAYS. You told us your biggest concern. What is your biggest concern right now?

Sergeant SHANNON. My biggest concern is having the young men

and women who have had their lives shattered in service to their

country getting taken care of. Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. Mr. Waxman.

Mr. WAXMAN. Staff Sergeant Shannon, that’s your biggest concern and that has to be the biggest concern of all Americans. I

think that people were shocked when they heard about the Washington Post story of the deplorable conditions here at Walter Reed.

And some of the reactions to those news reports have been, we

never knew things were out of hand.

Now, I can’t understand that when we get officials that say they

just didn’t know things were happening, that was so shocking because I have—and I am going to ask the chairman to make it part

of the record—I have a long list, a stack of reports and articles that

sounded the alarm bells about what was going on here and around

the country.

Example: In February 2005, Mark Benjamin wrote an article in

Salon Magazine, describing appalling conditions and shocking patterns of neglect in ward 54, Walter Reed’s inpatient psychiatric

ward. Another report from Salon in 2006 warned that soldiers with

traumatic brain injuries were not being screened, identified or

treated, and others were being misdiagnosed, forced to wait for

treatment, or called liars.

And then we have in June 2006, Military Times ran a story reporting on problems with the Physical Evaluation Board process. In

2005 RAND issued a very comprehensive report for the Secretary

of Defense finding that the military disability system is unduly

complex and confuses veterans and policymakers alike. And then

the GAO, the Government Accountability Office, found inadequate

collaboration between the Pentagon and the Veterans Administration to expedite vocational rehabilitation services for seriously injured service members.

The GAO did some other reports as well, because in February

2005, GAO reported on gaps in pay and benefits that create financial hardships for injured Army, National Guard and Reserve soldiers. And in March 2006 GAO warned that a quarter of the Active

Duty soldiers and more than half of reservists and guardsmen do

not get their cases adjudicated according to Pentagon guidelines.

And in April 2006, GAO reported that military debts posed significant hardships to hundreds of sick and injured soldiers serving

in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And in May 2006, GAO issued a report on problems with the

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tration. And in fact, 2 weeks ago, the Army Inspector General revealed an ongoing investigation of problems with the Physical Evaluation Board system and investigation which has also identified 87

problems with the medical evaluation system.

Even Congress acted on this issue. The 2007 Defense Appropriations bill called for Physical Evaluation Board members to document medical evidence justifying disability ratings rather than simply allowing them to deny disabilities by writing preexisting conditions, the kind of problems your husband had, Mrs. McLeod.

Despite all of these press reports, studies and investigations, it

took the Washington Post finally to capture people’s attention, and

they deserve an enormous amount of credit for what they’ve done.

But despite all the work that went on before, top Pentagon officials

reacted to the reports at Walter Reed 2 weeks ago by claiming surprise.

Let me just read what the Pentagon’s highest civilian official in

charge of the military medical program said in a press conference.

Dr. William Winkenwerder Jr. the Assistant Secretary of Defense

for Health Affairs, said: This news caught me, as it did many other

people, completely by surprise.

Well, my question for the three of you or whoever wants to respond, what is your reaction to these kinds of statements? What is

your response to top military officials when they claim they had no

idea that there were any of these kinds of problems? Sergeant

Shannon.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Sergeant SHANNON. As you will read in my statement, I believe

implicitly in an open door policy. The biggest problem they have

with me is I have been here long enough to see things constantly

go up the chain to be told—and I believe that is General

Weightman’s primary mistake. I don’t think he should have been

fired, but he said he did not know. That is not true in my opinion.

Mr. WAXMAN. Let me ask Mrs. McLeod, because I know I will be

running out of time, what is your reaction when you have been trying to get people’s attention to the situation for your husband, and

now when we have it so clearly laid out in the press and there is

attention being paid to it, the higher-ups say they are just sort of

surprised to hear about all of this.

Mrs. MCLEOD. I have one question. Were they deaf? Because I

worked the chain. I worked anybody that would listen. So they

didn’t—you don’t want to hear, you don’t hear.

Mr. WAXMAN. Specialist Duncan.

Specialist DUNCAN. There is no way they couldn’t have known.

Everybody had to have known somewhere. If they wanted to actually look at it or pay attention or believe, it was up to them.

Mr. WAXMAN. There is another statement that I find even more

offensive. January 25, 2005, David Chu, the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, was asked by the Wall Street

Journal about the costs of military health insurance and pensions.

In response he stated, ‘‘The amounts have gotten to the point

where they are hurtful. They are taking away from the Nation’s

ability to defend itself.’’

What is your view of this statement? Do you believe honoring our

service members by ensuring they are properly cared for lessens

our Nation’s ability to defend itself?

Sergeant SHANNON. Absolutely not. The cost of care for veterans

should not come out of moneys that are designated to fight a war.

The cost of care for veterans that are wounded in the course of

fighting that war should come out of separate funds. If a certain

amount of money—I mean, I don’t work at that level. But if a certain amount of money is designated to fight a war, it needs to focus

on the war, and there needs to be separate funds set aside; because

if they’re going to indicate they don’t have the funds to do it, well,

they need to separate—break the issue down. You can’t take away

from what the soldiers need over there. You can’t take away from

the soldiers’ need over here, and you can’t combine the cost because

it is too much.

Mr. WAXMAN. Under Secretary Geren welcomed us this morning

by saying that there is an Army military tradition that you leave

no wounded soldier behind. This sounds to me like this particular

man was saying that it is more important to fight, even if it means

leaving some of our wounded brave men and women patriots behind in their health care or their disability.

I am very disturbed by what we’re hearing and I am glad that

Chairman Tierney has convened this hearing right here at Walter

Reed. From what we’re hearing, what is going on here at Walter

Reed may be the tip of the iceberg of what is going on all around

the country. People are flooding us with complaints that it is not

just Walter Reed. Check out what is going on all around the country. And right now in Los Angeles, the Veterans Administration

75

wants to privatize the land rather than take care of the returnees

and the veterans. Thank you.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Waxman. Mr. Davis?

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Well, thank you. And let me thank Mr.

Waxman. As you know, a number of those GAO reports this committee requested, some of them coming from complaints from veterans that were stationed right here.

Mrs. McLeod, let me start with you. You went up the chain many

times, didn’t you?

Mrs. MCLEOD. Yes, sir.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. You finally called this committee, you

were so upset.

Mrs. MCLEOD. I would talk to anybody that would listen. And it

took the aid of another soldier who actually heard me cry, saw me

cry 1 day. He said, this is a number. Make a call. And that is when

I called Ms. Washbourne. And you know my story because you

have dealt with me. Had I not had any other recourse, I wouldn’t

be here today.

The thing of the matter is, Mr. Harvey made a statement the

other day that really bothers me. He said that he hoped the Washington Post was satisfied because they ruined careers. First, let me

come on record by saying I don’t care about your career as far as

anybody that is in danger. That doesn’t bother me. All I am trying

to do is have my life, the life that I had, and that I know my life

was ripped apart the day that my husband was injured. But then

having to live through the mess that we lived through at Walter

Reed has been worse than anything I have ever sacrificed in my

life.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you. She is referring to Grace Washbourne of

our staff who used to help us by taking the lead in this when people weren’t getting paid right, then they sic the bill collectors on

them, people are afraid of losing their houses when they come back

languishing. If they didn’t have any warnings of this, they weren’t

paying attention, because as Mr. Waxman noted, we had a number

of GAO reports that we authorized. GAO calls the balls and strikes

for Congress, showing that this was a systematic problem.

Now I understand that Walter Reed holds town hall meetings.

Could each of you tell us about these, who runs these meetings,

who attends them, how they are advertised, how often they take

place, what types of issues are discussed, and do problems get resolved?

Sergeant SHANNON. When I first got here, the wives at the

Mologne House started meeting on Thursdays to have a wives’

meeting to get issues addressed. That started doing some good. I’ve

been here a long time. The PTSD issues started kicking in. They

started having me stay at home. I have never been to a town hall

meeting. I had an opportunity, just before the Dana Priest story

came out, to go to a sensing session for NCOs and any service

members. And I couldn’t see the point in it. I have been here too

long. It just hasn’t done any good. So I didn’t go.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Any of you been to a town hall meeting?

Mrs. MCLEOD. I was the first wife that actually spoke up. I was

the one that actually stated my piece because they had denied him

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jury, and I looked Colonel Hamilton in the face and I told him, y’all

must have thought you cured him because you haven’t touched him

since he’s been back.

My thing is, he opened the floor and I blasted him with everything I had, because I was to the point. I really didn’t care because

it seemed like I had had enough. I was tired of fighting the system.

I was tired of trying to help him get well. At the same time, they

didn’t seem to really care. They wanted him out of here. They

wanted to turn him over to the VA.

His case manager at the time was Captain Regina Long. She got

tired of dealing with me when he was in Virginia, because I started

calling him 3 weeks—calling her 3 weeks before he’d come back

from Virginia, letting her know what he needed, what he didn’t

need, what he needed to followup on. And she got so aggravated

with me because there was a span that I had gone home to try to

get things together there. She actually sent him home to keep from

having to deal with him. She told me, she said, I cannot maintain

him the way you want to maintain him. She said, so you—I am

going to send him home until we can decide what to do with him,

and we will probably turn him over to the VA.

I fought tooth and nail, and that is an old saying for me, because

he should have been taken care of.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Davis.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I will just ask if Mr. Duncan wanted to

respond to that.

Specialist DUNCAN. I have never actually been in a town hall

meeting, sir.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, sir. Mr. Lynch from Massachusetts.

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank Chairman Tierney and Chairman Waxman and also Ranking Members

Shays and Davis for holding this hearing. I want to thank the panelists for their willingness to testify and to help this committee

with its work.

You really are speaking this morning not only for yourselves but

everyone else in uniform. A lot of the Members up here have been

over to Iraq a number of times. I have been over five times, and

also Afghanistan. And I know a lot of these Members have gone

with me. And one of the things that always struck me, whether we

were in—at the Landstuhl medical facility in Ramstein, or whether

we were in Balad visiting very severely wounded young men and

women in uniform, they always talked about, well, it is is going to

be OK once I get to Walter Reed. And there was just this gold

standard and this confidence and trust in our military personnel

that when they got to Walter Reed, it was going to be OK. They

were going to get put back together, and they were going to have

a maximum outcome, whatever their injuries were.

And I think these most recent revelations have been—well, it has

been a real blow to that reputation. And so the task here for us—

and together with your help, and I thank all the members of the

military who are here today, and I appreciate their service to our

country—our job today is to make this right. It is not just about

doing the right thing. It is about doing the thing right and making

sure that this process works.

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One of the things that was stunning to me in going through all

the testimony in previous hearings with the veterans groups is that

for disability approval within the Armed Services, I noticed that

the Marine Corps—well, it is actually the Navy, but the Marine

Corps approves about 30 percent, 35 percent of its injured for temporary or permanent disability. The Air Force approves about 24

percent. But the Army, that had the largest number of Active Duty

soldiers and reservists, put less than 4 percent. It is a massive difference, and it can’t be, it can’t be just random.

And I know each of you went through this process and also witnessed your fellows-in-arms together going through this process,

and you saw how this was handled. I know the PTSD issue is out

there, and that we saw less willingness on the part of the military

to approve disability based on PTSD. Do you see a purposeful effort

here to refuse the 30 percent disability that would bring, I think,

dignity and the right benefits to those who are injured in uniform?

I would like to just get your sense of it, whether this is a purposeful attempt to deny those benefits to men and women in uniform.

Mrs. MCLEOD. We were fortunate because I didn’t give up. They

had no intention of even compensating him for the cognitive dysfunction. Only when we started the med board, they had already

done all of his addendums and sent them in. They tested him for

his brain injury after—with the help of Mr. Davis and Ms. Grace

Washbourne, they did a congressional investigation, and they

called me in the office and they—all the colonels, all the case managers, the nurse case manager, my husband’s platoon sergeant,

commander of the Med Holdover, what can we do to make this

right?

I said exactly what you should have done to start with. Here is

a man, his life is messed up, but you not only messed his life up,

you messed mine, too. Give us what we need, rightfully, and let me

go home.

They tested him the very next day, because when they first tested him they said he didn’t try hard enough. He went from being

a Title I math and reading to, 6 months down the line, he was in

special education, according to the Army. He never was in special

education before he was injured. He was as smart as most people

are.

Most children have trouble when they are coming up. I had trouble in math. But, believe me, I am far from being mentally retarded.

When the Army was through with him, they had him down to

where he was mentally retarded; and that was on black and white.

So they retested him, and they come up to me a week later. They

told me, Mrs. McLeod, we did find something. We found that he

was slow. We found that his cognitive skills don’t measure up.

You would have found them to start with if you had paid attention.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mrs. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Lynch.

Mr. Platts.

Mr. PLATTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you and the

ranking member for holding this hearing.

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I believe that as a Nation we certainly have no greater duty and

responsibility than caring for those who defend our freedoms; and

it is a privilege to hear the testimony of Staff Sergeant Shannon,

Specialist Duncan. Mrs. McLeod, we appreciate your courage and

service on the home front, Staff Sergeant, Specialist and Mrs.

McLeod, your courage and service on the home front and theirs on

the war front.

I want to start, Staff Sergeant Shannon, you talked about your

specific case; and I want to make sure I understand the circumstances of when you were first injured. Two days later, here at

Walter Reed, from November 13th, and you arrived here—3 days,

November 16th.

Sergeant SHANNON. First of all, I don’t remember the exact

dates. I was wounded November 13th, and I know I spent 2 or 3

days in Landstuhl, but I really don’t remember.

Mr. PLATTS. Is it safe to say that within a week you had been

transferred here and then discharged to outpatient?

Sergeant SHANNON. I’m pretty sure I was discharged on the 18th,

which is about 3 days—or 5 days after I was shot, sir.

Mr. PLATTS. Five days after being wounded in Iraq, severe injuries, traumatic brain injury, you were discharged, outpatient basically, given a map of where to go and left to be on your own, is

that correct?

Sergeant SHANNON. Yes, sir. And some of that is my fault. I am

a Staff Sergeant. I won’t stay in bed. Somebody else can have it.

Whether I need to be there or not is something I am not qualified

to say. I just won’t stay in bed.

Mr. PLATTS. We appreciate that can-do approach in wanting to

look out for others. But it just is amazing that—basically cut loose

to that outpatient and without some guidance you talked about finally getting in touch with your case manager and then your case

manager did assist in setting up some appointments.

Once you made that contact, what was the give and take between you and your case manager? Did he regularly get in touch

with you, or is it always you having to pursue them?

Sergeant SHANNON. The problem was directly related to the

breakdown in the system. Actually my case manager was a lady

named Maggie Hardy, a wonderful case manager. After I had finally made contact with her, she, first of all, was wondering where

I had been and yet knowing I hadn’t been AWOL, because they

were tracking my appointment in the computer system. I was making my appointment in the computer system. But after I met her

and that became part of my counseling for incoming personnel—

know who your case manager is and work with them because they

will keep things happening that need to be happening.

Does that answer the question?

Mr. PLATTS. So the contact, once you established it, then there

was a good back and forth between you and her?

Sergeant SHANNON. Yes, sir.

Mr. PLATTS. The gentleman you mentioned, Danny Soto, an independent, how did you come to be in touch with him and what is

his official role at the Mologne House?

Sergeant SHANNON. I met Danny Soto a number of different

times. I am not sure who he works for. Actually, I think it might

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be Wounded Warrior, DAV. But I know that many personnel at the

hospital or at the Mologne House and system can speak to the

work that he does as an advocate for them in the MEB/PEB process for return to duty, medical discharge or medical retirement.

He is—like I said, he is just one man. There needs to be an entire staff of people that work outside of a Government connection

that have knowledge of how the system is supposed to work and

can give us guidance in that system. Because a huge problem, regardless of what is done here, is to re-earn the trust of patients

here. And I have spoken to some of the officers that are working

on it. They can fix the problem. And I know myself, I don’t trust

it. They have to figure out some way to get me to trust it again.

Mr. PLATTS. So Danny Soto would serve as a good example of the

type of ombudsman that you think would be wise for the wounded

and the families——

Sergeant SHANNON. Absolutely. He is priceless.

Mr. PLATTS. Question, and, Mrs. McLeod, in the prior two terms

I chaired the Subcommittee on Financial Management. We saw significant difficulties with the Army on the financial side of dealing

with Guard and Reservist, and I understand your husband was a

guardsman and then activated?

Mrs. MCLEOD. Yes, sir.

Mr. PLATTS. Did you feel that it was a different treatment because of having been a guardsman in the family, as opposed to Active Duty, or do you think it was more across the board, regardless

of Active Duty, Reserve, guardsman?

Mrs. MCLEOD. As far as the finance, we didn’t have any trouble

with the finance as far as the issues. We did have a soldier that

befriended my husband and stole his identity. That kind of finance

I had trouble with. But other than finance issues with the Army,

I didn’t have trouble.

Mr. PLATTS. But the medical issues, such as you reference a case

manager denying the MRI even though the doctor ordered it. Those

type of medical issues, did you see a difference?

And, Staff Sergeant Shannon, maybe you can answer this, too,

is as how Active Duty soldiers—was there a difference in how they

received care and followup versus Guard and Reserve? Did that

create a problem because of the challenge of managing a very large

deployment of Guard and Reserves?

Sergeant SHANNON. First of all, I apologize, Mr. Platts.

Mr. PLATTS. Take your time.

Sergeant SHANNON. When I was first here, the medical hold company was all services combined, OK? Now they have two companies, medical holdover and medical hold. That was very necessary.

But watching them try to go through an additional paperwork process was—there was no question in my mind that the indicators—

I say things like that because I am reconnaissance type. But the

indicators were such that they were having a lot more trouble figuring out the paper trail that is correct for the services they need

and the connections they needed with their States in reference to

those services.

Mr. PLATTS. I think my time is up.

Mr. TIERNEY. Time is up. Thank you, sir.

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Mr. PLATTS. I want to thank you for your service in taking your

personal struggle that each of you had and turning them into public good through your testimony here today. Thank you.

Mr. TIERNEY. Just for the benefit of the Members, to let you

know the next speaker will be Mr. Yarmuth, Mr. Duncan, Mr.

Braley, Mr. Turner.

Mr. YARMUTH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to all

three of you for being here today. I would like to add my voice to

what I am sure are millions of American voices who are not only

very sorry for the ordeal you have gone through but also are very

also angry about it. I am glad we had this hearing, and I know that

eventually we are going to correct the problems that resulted in

your situations.

I would also like to say one thing as a former journalist, that it

is precisely this type of situation for which the first amendment

was conceived; and I salute the Washington Post, Newsweek, Bob

Woodruff and all those who brought this situation to light.

I am also astounded that it took so long to come to light. These

situations apparently are long standing, and I’m curious as to

know—and this would be for Staff Sergeant Shannon and Specialist Duncan—what the normal procedure would be for you to raise

complaints about the treatment you were getting?

Sergeant SHANNON. Open door policy, sir. Open door policy works

well as long as—well, and if people don’t understand policy, if you

have a concern of a lower-level soldier, he takes it to me. If I don’t

satisfy that concern for him, he has the right to take it above my

head, and he can continue above the chain until his concern is addressed.

And, first of all, the Washington Post didn’t come to speak to me.

They came to speak with my wife. She is a person that everyone

knows, knows the problems that go on here. In the course of that,

they met me; and I decided to exercise what, in my opinion, was

the necessary open door policy for the problems here. It is called

public opinion.

Because when a command uses, in my opinion, the open door policy to keep problems in house—which is the correct method—but

not to solve those problems—which is an incorrect method—then

there has to be a level you can go to that the problem can be fixed.

And my personal understanding of those problems going very high

indicated that nobody was going to fix this. And I’m a leader. My

wife reminds me I am a patient. Those kids—no offense to the service members—are going to get taken care of, period.

Specialist DUNCAN. I feel the same way. You address it as high

as you can until finally you get fed up with it and do what you

have to do to get it done.

Mr. YARMUTH. I am curious as to why in this particular case nobody along the chain of command reacted at all, apparently, to do

anything about it, since you all had to go outside the system. What

is it about the mentality there? Did everyone feel complicit in this?

Helpless? I am curious as to why no one in the chain of command

would have responded.

Specialist DUNCAN. I guess their idea—they probably, as they already said, is we didn’t know this was happening like this, and we

didn’t have any ideas. Correct me if I’m wrong, Sergeant.

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Sergeant SHANNON. Sir, I feel the need to say this. They did respond, as I read my statement, of course. But the response was indicative of a broken system that is trying to survive. They fired a

good man. They fired a few of them.

Some of them may have deserved it. But I have to say First Sergeant Walker, the first sergeant of the medical holding company,

is someone I have known for a while; and he has gone to bat for

us on a daily basis. I would just personally like to apologize to him.

He is a good man, and he didn’t deserve it, I don’t think.

Now I am not privy and I don’t have a right to know the ins and

outs of his case. But a system that fires people down the chain,

once again, in my opinion, is indicative of a system that is trying

to protect itself whether it fixes the problem or not and, in my

opinion, clearly not focused on fixing the problem.

Mr. YARMUTH. About a year ago, I had a situation which I was

on a plane talking to a man who had just come back from Washington and had visited Walter Reed with a friend of his. They were

talking to a soldier who was from Lexington, KY, had been a postal

worker, was in the Guard, was wounded and so forth. It was near

Christmas time. His life had been disrupted, his financial stresses,

and all those things that we are well aware of now. And this man

to whom I was speaking asked him if there was anything he could

do for his family or him for Christmas to make his life easier. He

said, yeah, I would like some clean tee shirts, because it is very

cold where I am, and they can’t afford to give me clean tee shirts.

And I kind of forgot about it at the time because you hear about

Walter Reed and the extraordinary care that is provided here, and

I thought it was kind of an aberration.

I am wondering how trivial and how many of these situations

exist? We have heard of, in the Post series and others, some of the

more heinous situations with patients being lost and, obviously, the

deaths that have occurred and so forth. At what level does this

stop?

[The prepared statement of Hon. John A. Yarmuth follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. The gentleman’s time has expired, but one brief answer will suffice.

Sergeant SHANNON. I can’t speak to levels, but when I have to

get my Purple Heart in civilian clothing and show my Purple Heart

to supply just so I can get my uniform, it is broken.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Mr. Duncan.

Mr. DUNCAN OF TENNESSEE. Well, thank you very much, Mr.

Chairman. I join the others in thanking you for calling this hearing, and I want to also thank former Chairman Davis for the great

work that he did in this regard trying to at least start doing something about this.

Let me say, first of all, though, that whenever any Government

agency seems to screw up in some big way, the two things they always say, they always say that their computers and technology

wasn’t good enough or wasn’t up to date, which they have far better technology throughout the Federal Government than most

major private businesses. But, second, and most often, we hear the

claim that they are underfunded.

I think we need to point out that both the Defense Department

and the VA—but particularly the Defense Department—have received massive increases in funding in the last 5 or 10 years, mega

billions; and so this is clearly not a shortage or problem of money.

The Congress has given huge increases to the Defense Department

in recent years, and we have tried to say many times that we want

plenty of money going for this medical care.

I join all the others in saying this should be the highest priority,

and I want to also join others in thanking each of you for coming

forward.

But, Mrs. McLeod, I notice you said that you thought that General Weightman might be a fall guy; and, Sergeant Shannon, you

seem to be less critical of him, also. I believe he just came in August.

But in one of the Washington Post stories it says Congressman

Bill Young and his wife stopped visiting the wounded at Walter

Reed—which they were doing I think on a weekly basis—out of

frustration. Young said he voiced concerns to commanders over

troubling incidents he witnessed that were rebuffed or ignored.

When Bev and I would bring problems to the attention of authorities of Walter Reed, we were made to feel very uncomfortable.

Beverly Young said she complained to Kiley several times. She

once visited a soldier who was lying in urine on his mattress pad

in the hospital. When a nurse ignored her, Young said, I went flying down to Kevin Kiley’s office again and got nowhere. He has

skirted this stuff for 5 years and blamed everyone else.

Did you find that to be true, that everybody was blaming somebody else with the problems that you had? I’ll ask each of you.

Mrs. MCLEOD. I feel that everybody is passing the buck. You go

to one and they say, it is not my problem. You need to go to so and

so. I did everything but camp out. I mean, honestly, if I could get

away with that, I probably would have done that, too.

You can’t keep looking and not getting answers.

Mr. DUNCAN OF TENNESSEE. Sergeant Shannon.

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Sergeant SHANNON. It is difficult for me to speak about people

passing the buck. It is something that does surprise me by virtue

of the story coming out in the Post, because I didn’t want to see

anybody fired. I just want to see the problem get fixed. I work at

my level. I am good at working at my level. I know that on a constant basis things were passed to higher.

Mr. DUNCAN OF TENNESSEE. Let me ask you this. The sub-headlines in the main Washington Post story said that ‘‘bureaucratic

bungling,’’ and it says ‘‘frustration at every turn.’’ Do you think

those are accurate descriptions of what you ran into?

Sergeant SHANNON. Absolutely. The bottom line is like a situation I know of a young man missing his entire right arm that the

Army has seen fit to award 10 percent disability because he is

going to receive 80 percent of the use of his arm with his prosthetic. Oh, yes, that is the bottom line, sir.

Mr. DUNCAN OF TENNESSEE. One of these stories says, General

Kiley lives right across the street from Building 18, which is apparently the worst example of what is going on here. Did any of the

three of you—did you see these top generals and the top brass here

getting out and going around and observing what was going on? Or

do you feel like they stayed isolated in their offices and just meeting with their staff people?

Specialist DUNCAN. After the article came out, there was a lot of

people visiting Building 18 and looking into it after the article

came out. Before then, it was occasionally a commander come

through, check on everybody, make sure things are going right. It

wasn’t like overwhelmed as it is now. But, before, it was just, you

know, a few people going in, check on it, say, hey, how is everybody

doing.

Mr. DUNCAN OF TENNESSEE. That is what I was talking about,

was before the articles came out.

Let me just—I know my time is about to run out, but let me say

this. It is not just Members of Congress up here who are upset

about this. I will tell you it is people around the whole country.

They are very upset about this, and I think all of us are going to

demand that action be taken.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Duncan.

Mr. Braley.

Mr. BRALEY. Staff Sergeant Shannon, Mrs. McLeod and Specialist Duncan, thank you for your courage in coming here today and

sharing your stories with us.

I am here because my brother Brian works as a

kinesthiotherapist at the VA Hospital in Knoxville, IA, taking care

of patients every day; and I know that every Member who provides

medical and psychiatric care to veterans is tainted by the stories

we are talking about here today. Every person in the VA system

should want these problems solved so that we get back to having

pride in the facilities that take care of our veterans.

One of the things that I am not at all shocked about is the fact

that case managers may be playing a role in denying access to veterans to the benefits that they are entitled to, because I am familiar with the AMA guides to permanent evaluation. I am familiar

with the DSM-IV criteria that are used.

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I have represented veterans and their families in life and disability claims, and one of the things that has been known for a long

time is that case managers have two functions. One is to return a

worker to the work force as quickly as possible and, two, to minimize the cost to the employer of returning them to work. Those

don’t work at the same level of advocacy that patients need.

What I would like to know, is there anybody who serves the role

as an ombudsman or as a patient advocate here at Walter Reed in

assisting patients with these claims?

Sergeant SHANNON. My first experience with that—and I apologize, I talk too much. But my first experience was working with my

initial PEBLO counselor, and he gave me all the information about,

hey, you need to educate yourself about this process. Because once

this is done, it is done; and if you miss something you are entitled

to, it is gone.

So, based on his knowledge of the system, I said, OK, well, tell

me what I need to do or tell me who I need to talk to. He just had

to smile at me and said, I don’t know who to talk to. They are all

retired and gone.

At that point, I was no longer able to trust my PEBLO counselor

in the process.

Danny Soto, once again, is a person outside of the system who

is knowledgeable of the system. He is someone we can trust. Because, based on what I consider an automatic conflict of interest,

the PEBLO and the MEB/PEB process both work for the same organization, the U.S. Government.

Mr. BRALEY. Mrs. McLeod, one of the reasons I am concerned

about what we are hearing today from you is that part of the response to the problems here at Walter Reed was to propose adding

39 additional case managers to assist with the processing of these

disability claims. And, to me, what we are talking about is a solution to the problems that you and others have shared, is making

sure that there are people outside the case managers who are here

to assist veterans and their families, negotiate the difficult process

of qualifying for and receiving an official determination of whether

or not they are entitled to disability benefits. Would you care to

comment on that?

Mrs. MCLEOD. My thing is, if the doctor feels it’s necessary to

run a test, it is not the case manager’s job to second guess that.

If it were, she would be in the doctor’s place.

I went to my husband’s case manager. I begged her when, on

April 19th, he was supposed to have—set up the MRI, to have it

scheduled. He got that MRI June 23rd, when I took him myself.

The case managers need to stop playing doctor, and they need to

be case managers. They are supposed to get them where they need

to go, schedule the appointments and stop questioning it. But, instead, his case manager got so upset at me she sent him home to

keep from having to deal with him.

But she got quick enough whenever I put in the resources that

I did. She gave him a physical in her office.

Now we are talking sanitary—have you seen those offices? The

last thing you want to be doing is examining in the office. I won’t

tell you how mad I got, and I won’t tell you the things that I said.

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But the treatment that she gave him, before I had her fired as his

case manager, a dog wouldn’t deserve it.

Mr. BRALEY. Do the three of you know, does the JAG Corps provide any type of legal assistance to veterans who are processing

disability claims?

Sergeant SHANNON. I don’t know about processing disability

claims, but the JAG has been very helpful here just in the course

of my wife’s vehicle being repossessed. The vehicle that I owned

prior to going to combat and my not knowing—I couldn’t remember

who to send payments to and stuff after I was wounded, contacting

those companies and in getting the message across that we have

been wounded and give him some time to catch up.

So I am not sure about processing claims, but they are there, and

they have done good work for me.

Mrs. MCLEOD. The only time I dealt with the JAG was during

the episode where the guy tapped me—all our accounts when he

saw my husband’s identity. And they told me that it was not an

issue for them, that I had to go through Finance.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank the gentleman.

Mr. Turner.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you and Ranking Member Davis

for your efforts in trying to ensure that we have quality medical

care and the services that we need for our men and women who

serve their country.

Staff Sergeant Shannon, Mrs. McLeod, Specialist Duncan, I want

to personally thank you for your service and what you have done

not just in trying to ensure that there is appropriate care here but

in making certain that the word is known as to what needs to be

done. You have a great deal of courage, and you have certainly

brought things to light that have saddened many people across the

country.

I know that you are aware that in the next panel and the third

panel that we have people who are going to come and speak about

this issue who have various degrees of accountability or various degrees of answers. We have General Kiley, General Weightman. We

have General Schoomaker and General Cody. What would you like

to hear from them and what type of questions would you like to

hear them answer with the issues that you brought forward?

Sergeant SHANNON. On their level, at this point, this is about accountability.

Like I said, you know, I am a firm believer in the Peter principle.

Don’t ask me to work in a job I am not qualified to do. This has

no reflection on whether they are qualified to do it, but it reflects

directly on my ability to speak to what they should do.

I just want them to fix the problem. In fact, I personally got a

little angry when Harvey resigned. Now I don’t know how things

work in Washington, DC, but in combat we don’t get to resign

when people—bullets are flying and people are dying.

Now the way that reflects on this issue is that this is a political

war, to some degree, on a daily basis; and when they are receiving

political incoming rounds in the course of helping us or in the

course of dereliction of duty in that requirement, they continue to

fight for us until they are fired, pull themselves up by their bootVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:03 Mar 20, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00090 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\40852.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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straps—like any sergeant would do—admit to their mistakes and

work to fix them until they are fired.

Mrs. MCLEOD. On my level, as far as the family members are

concerned, I would like them to answer to the family, to say, we

can guarantee—that is what I want. I want a guarantee that not

anybody would have to go through what I went through, that we

are going to listen and we are going to take charge.

Specialist DUNCAN. I would like to hear them actually say that

they are going to fix the problem and not just cover up—what they

are trying to do—cover up, trying to say, yeah, we are fixing Building 18, when all it is is paint and spackle. That doesn’t fix. It just

covers up. Just fix it like they are trying to do now. Just need to

fix it from the ground up, get it fixed so it is fit to live in.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Ms. McCollum.

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for holding this meeting.

I would like to thank the people who are testifying. I would like

to thank all of those who served our country. We need to show our

thanks. We need to show it through respect in the way we welcome

our veterans and their families home, and we are not going a very

good job, and that is why we are having this hearing today.

I first became aware that the system at the VA level had challenges and was broken by being the daughter of a disabled veteran

and watching benefits erode away, talking to veterans in my community about long waits, lack of equipment. They knew when they

saw the overworked staff, however, they were going to get the best

of care. But it was having the ability to see the staff.

I am very concerned about a lot of issues, but I want to followup

on one; and, if you don’t mind, Staff Sergeant, I am going to quote

from your full testimony.

‘‘I have been lost in the system. I want to leave this place. I have

seen so many soldiers get so frustrated with the process they will

sign anything presented just so they can get on with their lives.’’

By signing documentation without fighting for the benefits they

have earned, they are agreeing in writing to the Army’s determination of their benefits. And, as Mr. Lynch pointed out, the Army’s

only at 4 percent in determining benefits.

We almost have no advocacy that is not working for the Government, no one that we can talk to about this process, no one who

is knowledgeable and that we can trust who is going to give us fair

treatment and informed guidance. The physical evaluation counselors, the MEB and the PEB, both work for the Government and

have its interests at heart, not ours.

Mr. Lynch had been quoting from a document that he had, and

I would like to add a little more to what the Staff Sergeant just

said in his own words and then ask a question.

Each branch of the military provides for opportunities for injured

and service members to challenge their ratings. Most of the injured

simply pocket their severance checks and go home. Only 20 percent

of the soldiers ask for formal hearings at which an attorney can

present evidence and call witnesses. As the Army says, only half

of those soldiers proceed with hearings. Perhaps that indicates

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most injured soldiers are satisfied with their ratings, but veterans

groups say more wounded service members would challenge the

ratings if it wasn’t so complicated and time consuming.

Most of those hurt in the line of duty are young, weary of fighting and anxious to return home to their civilian lives. In other

words—these are my own words—the severance checks can look

really quick and a lot less painful at times, not realizing the benefits that they have been signing away.

I would ask you to tell us if you know of any pressures that you

have either heard of or witnessed for people who sign away their

benefits and what we need to do in order to make sure that veterans know—either by providing an ombudsperson or whatever—that

their rights will be protected, we do welcome them home, and we

do respect them.

Mrs. MCLEOD. I know a soldier, fairly young, maybe early 20’s,

was deployed. I took this soldiers under my wing whenever we met;

and he was a great guy, very nice. He told his recruiter that he

had an episode in high school, and the Army took him anyway.

They sent him to Iraq. When he got back to Walter Reed, they diagnosed him with bipolar. But he was pre-existent. The Army gave

him 0 percent.

This guy has nothing. He is trying to find his way back into society. They blame him for being what he was. But they gave him 0

percent.

This is how we treat our soldiers. We give them nothing. But

they are good enough to go and sacrifice their life, and we give

them nothing.

You need to fix the system, compensate where it is needed.

This soldier needs care. Yeah, the VA treated him. But the VA

will treat him according to his rating with the Army. Because this

is the first thing they ask, what was your rating with the Army?

You get a category.

We were fortunate because my fight still continues. They knew

me, first-name basis.

Well, what about the ones that don’t have me? What about the

ones that don’t have a wife or a mother or father that can stand

up for them?

If you are good enough to go, you are good enough to be taken

care of when you leave here. We need to take care of those that

took care of us.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Ms. McCollum.

Ms. Foxx.

Ms. FOXX. Thank you, Mr. Chairman; and I want to thank all of

the folks who are here today and all of our military people who are

here for being willing to serve to protect our rights to be here.

I am very interested in the issue of accountability; and I realize

that, throughout our society, we have people who are unresponsive.

We see it every day in the personnel in the Congress. I will tell you

that there are people who work throughout Government agencies

who don’t always react the way they should react, particularly to

other staff people.

What I am interested in is, how do we fix the system? Casting

blame doesn’t do us any good if we aren’t fixing the system.

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Sergeant Shannon, Mrs. McLeod, Specialist Duncan, do you have

some specific recommendations to make? And you don’t have to tell

them to us today. But do you have any specific recommendations

you can make on how the system can be better so that it is fixed?

And I particularly am interested in how do we assign responsibility

in order to have accountability? It seems to me that the biggest

complaint you all have made is this passing-the-buck complaint.

So how can we establish a system that says, you have been to

someone, you have asked a question, it is, in your mind, the responsibility of that person to take care of that problem, and they

don’t do it.

Unless we are willing to fire people who are either incompetent

or unresponsive, then what alternatives do we have to try and to

solve the problems that we are seeing?

Sergeant SHANNON. I believe I can speak directly to that based

on the military system I have grown to know so well myself. Any

noncommissioned officer can tell you that you don’t just give people

instructions to do things. You supervise them.

A person can be getting close to a position where they need to

be fired. However, with proper supervision, they can be brought

back in line. This directly relates to priorities in my opinion. And

the breaking of the story has changed priorities, and now things

are getting done.

The priorities of the people above—they need to be supervising

what is done below them on a daily basis—can be changed so that

they are not supervising at the level they need to be supervising

at. If I was doing that at my level, I would be in danger of getting

fired in my job.

Like any system, whether it be a civilian or military, at the point

where you are seeing somebody that is having a problem doing

their job correctly, you counsel them; and if they still can’t do it,

you counsel them again. I believe it is three times, then they are

fired.

But that requires proper supervision, ma’am. If the supervision

is not happening—so how can you counsel somebody when you are

really not watching what they are doing?

Mrs. MCLEOD. In my situation, for example, my husband went

to a doctor. The doctor roughed him up pretty good. Finally, I

wound up having to take him to the emergency room because he

couldn’t move for 3 days. We filed a complaint. When the patient

rep called me, first, she wouldn’t talk to me; and then my husband

said, you need to talk to my wife. She can explain to you more.

I told her what happened; and she asked me, she says, are you

sure? I said, yeah, I wouldn’t have filed the complaint if I hadn’t

been sure. She said, well, I am sorry on behalf of the hospital.

Well, sometimes things like this happen.

No, it doesn’t happen.

When they tell you that is all they can do, that is all they can

do. We have doctors—let me specify, he has doctors that were so

eager to fight for the system they made him able to move. They put

him in the emergency room, but they made him able to move. Because they wanted to fight for the Army.

We need to turn it around. We need to fight for the soldiers. The

soldier is the reason you have a job.

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When they go to the case manager, there shouldn’t be secondguessing. They should say, OK, we will put you where you need to

be. We will get the doctor. When you go to the doctor and he says

OK, we need to do this, you have to go back to the case manager.

She has to set up everything. There shouldn’t be, well, I will talk

to the doctor. No problem. This needs to be taken care of.

You need to start treating the soldiers like citizens, like the same

representative anybody would want. You go to your doctor, you

don’t want him to second-guess you. You want him to find the problem. You want him to get a result. That is what you go to him for.

That is exactly the same thing they need to do. They need to

start at the very bottom first and find out why they can’t do their

job to the capacity they need to do. You need to work your way up

the system. When you find the broken link, you either put some

glue on it to fix it or you get rid of it.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, very much.

Mr. Cooper.

Mr. COOPER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman; and thanks to each one

of the witnesses for your outstanding testimony.

If there are this many problems in Building 18, how about Buildings 1 through 17 or buildings with higher numbers? We need to

make sure that we are getting to all the problems here at Walter

Reed. Are there any other facilities or personnel issues that we

need to know about?

Specialist DUNCAN. From my understanding—I just got currently

moved over to Building 14 myself as of Friday. Our complaint for

people living in 18 didn’t want to move because over in Building

18 we had free cable and computers downstairs. From my understanding, now they are moving TVs and computers over to Building

14.

How long that is going to take, I am not sure. But they are just

trying to make it better now from the issues we have had before.

And everybody was comparing Building 14 with 18. There’s no

comparison. Building 18—honestly, I hate to say it—was like a

ghetto. It was tore up. It had nothing. But it had stuff that we

liked to have. Building 14 was a luxury, but it didn’t have the same

things we had over in 18, which now they are fixing. So, in my

opinion, they are starting to make it look better.

Everything is turning back toward the Mologne House. The

Mologne House was like—if you had been in the Mologne House

and you moved out, you hated it. But if you lived in the Mologne

House, you were living the life. It was great. You had a kitchen

downstairs. It was great. Had food and everything, ready to go.

They are trying to make it better. I will give them that, but it is

going to take a while for them to do that.

Mr. COOPER. The U.S. Government under the so-called BRAC

round has scheduled the closure of all of Walter Reed in a few

years and to move everything over to the Bethesda campus. What

opinion, if any, do you have about that shutdown of this entire facility and move over to the Bethesda campus?

Specialist DUNCAN. Like I was telling the press, there is no reason—you can’t use that as an excuse: ‘‘we’re closing down in a few

years.’’ There’s still soldiers coming in today and tomorrow and the

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next day. That stuff needs to get fixed here now before those problems get worse for the new soldiers coming in.

Myself, I have 2 months left here at Walter Reed. I am going

back to my unit. I don’t know how long Sergeant Shannon has. But

I am sure, when he leaves, the guy behind him is not going to live

in the same conditions or deal with the same problems that we are

having now. Those need to get fixed before Walter Reed closes

down. That is not an excuse.

Mr. COOPER. I thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Cooper.

Mr. Van Hollen.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to thank all of the witnesses for testifying as well and add

my voice to those who have thanked you and your families for your

service to the country and the sacrifices you have made.

As Mrs. McLeod said, you and your loved ones have been fighting

a war. You shouldn’t have to come back come here and fight a system. I think that is absolutely correct, and we need to make sure

the system provides you the respect you need. What we have

heard, unfortunately, is a system that has been providing more neglect than respect, at least with respect to outpatients that we are

dealing with.

As others have said, I think you have done a terrific service to

the country. If you look at the front page of today’s Washington

Post, you will find that, because of the issues you have raised here

at Walter Reed, others around the country who are facing similar

circumstances will have their voices heard and will be empowered

now. So you have done a great service not just here at Walter Reed

but around the country as well.

We all hear from time to time about those insurance companies

that tell people, you know, we want to take care of you when you

are in trouble and advertise as such. But when the time comes to

pay claims for certain insurance companies, they are not there.

They try and make their money and make their savings by denying

claims. That is clearly not a model that we want the U.S. Government and U.S. military to be following.

But from your testimony about your own personal circumstances

as well as other stories as well as reports from the GAO and others, clearly, when it comes to disability claims, it does appear that

the system has been stacked against individuals like yourselves

and your loved ones. And Mr. Waxman quoted in a statement Mr.

Chu made in 2005 suggesting that the health care we have to provide to our veterans is somehow a burden on the system that we

somehow shouldn’t be having to deal with.

Let me ask you, with respect to the system itself, and GAO essentially has said—and I do want to mention their report—in conclusion, they issued a long report about the disability—military disability evaluation system back in 2006. They concluded that DOD

is not adequately monitoring disabililty evaluation outcomes in Reserve and Active Duty disability cases and said that there had been

a lack of training, a lack of monitoring and a lack of oversight; and

it is clearly an area I think this committee is going to be taking

a look at and other Members of Congress, of the committees in

Congress.

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Do you have any specific recommendations with respect to that

disability system, which clearly seems to be designed more to essentially put an overwhelming burden on the individual seeking to

show that their disabilities have been related to their service and

not providing an ample opportunity for the individual? I don’t know

if you have any specific recommendations with respect to that process.

Mrs. MCLEOD. Well, that process—like I said, we were fortunate,

and we took the compensation because he got 50 percent. The thing

about it is, they never acknowledged that he has a brain injury. So

they didn’t compensate. They compensated for the cognitive disorder.

My thing is, they are so busy trying to make everything acceptable—several things on his med board were acceptable, but yet

they still retired him. How can everything be acceptable if you are

going to be retired? That is a little contradictory to me.

They gave him—for the anxiety and for the cognitive disorder,

they gave him the 30 percent with the attitude in April of next

year, when we have to come back, he is going to be better. Well,

if he is better—which I really at this point don’t see happening—

if he is better, he will lose that rating. And guess what? He will

get a severance package, and then he will have nothing.

I don’t think—if the injury warrants it, I don’t think there ought

to be a TDRL. The brain injury is permanent. What they have

taught him is compensatory measures. If he hadn’t had a brain injury, why were they teaching him compensation measures to help

him out? That is contradictory again.

My thing is, if you warrant compensation, it ought to be permanent, not something you have to bargain for 18 months down the

road. And then we may not have insurance. Then we are going to

have to get all his treatment at the VA.

What about the families? What are they supposed to do? I don’t

have nothing. But all because we still have to bargain up to 5 years

with the Army.

He didn’t bargain when he signed the line. He didn’t bargain

when he got injured. Why are you bargaining now?

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Mr. Hodes.

Mr. HODES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for holding

these hearings and, to the witnesses, thank you so much. You have

been very brave, and your courage is being heard around the country now. It is very important. What you have done in shedding

light on what is going on here is very important, and I know that

feelings that we feel hearing what you are saying are only a very

small little piece of the feelings you felt and what you have gone

through. So thank you for being here.

Staff Sergeant Shannon, I want to ask you, you have talked

about the help you got from Danny Soto. Do you think that there

needs to be some independent office or agency that is committed

to fighting for the soldiers in this system?

Sergeant SHANNON. Yes, I do. And, to clarify, I haven’t received

any help from Danny Soto yet. I have guided other people to him,

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and I am sure he has helped many others, but I have not been able

to start the MEB process—excuse me—to make it easier to understand the medical retirement process because of the holdups I have

gone through; and when I get to that point, I will be looking him

up.

Mr. HODES. Thank you for that clarification.

Mrs. McLeod, do you think there needs to be some independent

office or agency that fights for the soldier in this system whose only

duty is to the soldier and not to the system but to the soldier?

Mrs. MCLEOD. I think you ought to stop giving it to committees

and give it to the families. That is who you need to be talking to.

Give it to the ones that have to deal with it day in and day out.

Mr. HODES. What do you think the best way for us to give that

power, if you will, to the families would be, in your opinion?

Mrs. MCLEOD. There needs to be a committee formed with a couple of spouses, a couple of people that have the power to get the

things done. And there needs to be the a forum set up to say, OK,

we will research the families and the situations. We know, because

we have been there, and we need to set action into force. This is

what they said they need. Weigh it against exactly where we are

today and give them what they need, instead of sitting there waiting on somebody else to do it.

Mr. HODES. Specialist Duncan?

Specialist DUNCAN. I don’t have anything to say on that matter.

I am not going through the same process as they are.

Mr. HODES. Staff Sergeant Shannon, your picture appeared on

the front page of the Washington Post. Before your picture appeared, I understand that you were reporting to formation once a

week. Is that correct?

Sergeant SHANNON. That is correct.

Mr. HODES. After your picture appeared, my understanding is

you were ordered to report to formation daily, is that correct?

Sergeant SHANNON. That is correct.

Mr. HODES. And who gave you that order after your picture appeared to report daily to formation?

Sergeant SHANNON. Those instructions were passed on to me by

my platoon sergeant. He said they came from the sergeant major.

Mr. HODES. And did you inquire about the reason for your being

ordered to report to formation daily after your picture appeared in

the Washington Post?

Sergeant SHANNON. I just follow orders.

Mr. HODES. Did you consider that retribution against you for

going public with your story?

Sergeant SHANNON. I really couldn’t say. They tell me to stay

home because I tend to break things if I hang around much, and

I don’t work well in complex environments. So when they told me

that, I am like, fine. So the next time I decide to break somebody’s

arm or smash a piece of furniture they just tell me to go back to

my room again.

Mr. HODES. Specialist Duncan, have you experienced anything

that you think might be retribution for your going public?

Specialist DUNCAN. I can’t say exactly, maybe, for sure, yes. I

mean, all of a sudden moving of rooms, moving from building to

building, just all of a sudden quickly—all I asked them to do is fix

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the walls, not move me a million times. I am tired of moving

rooms. I have acquired a lot of bit of things being here for a year,

and moving is not fun anymore. I am just tired of moving here and

moving there. I just want them to fix it so I can deal with it.

Mr. HODES. Mrs. McLeod, you had to end up going to a Member

of Congress to get help for your situation.

Mrs. MCLEOD. Yes, sir. After that, I think they were afraid to retaliate.

Mr. HODES. Thank you. Thank you all very much.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Hodes.

Mr. Welch.

Mr. WELCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to thank the

witnesses. I am at the end of the line here, and I want to tell you

that it has been a very moving experience for me to hear each of

you tell your stories.

My concern is that this is the tip of the iceberg. My concern is

that there is a culture of disregard that has no place in how we

treat wounded veterans. And my concern is that there is a lack of

commitment to recognize the obvious, and that is that the cost of

the war has to include the cost of caring for the warrior.

I am going to yield the balance of my time because I appreciate

that you have been answering lots of questions, and my questions

have been asked and very eloquently answered. So I thank you for

your service.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Welch.

Mr. Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I, too, thank all of you for being here today; and, as I listened

to your testimony, I just said to myself, this should not be happening in America. It sounds as if we have a system which should be

in intensive care, and it appears we are putting band-aids on it.

As I listen to you, I was just wondering, you know, in another

hearing on another committee—I sit on Armed Services also—and

we had Sergeant Shannon—and to all of you, in some testimony

that there was a lack of psychiatrists and mental health people in

the military and they were trying to find more. The mental health

piece of the treatment here, how have you found that?

Specialist DUNCAN. I have had no problem with it, sir.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Have you, Sergeant Shannon?

Sergeant SHANNON. Well, I have a big problem with their mental

health thing. It is starting with their traumatic brain injury testing.

OK, first of all, they told me I have no loss of cognitive function.

Well, how can they do that if they give me a traumatic brain injury

test in my opinion that my 6-year old son could pass because it is

designed for severely traumatically brain injured people?

I know myself, and I know I have paid a price for the brain injury I received. If they can’t even take the time to balance scores

from tests I could take that I have taken before and see what the

difference is, I have a big problem with that.

Now, the counseling and everything that they give, from the psychiatrists to the psychologists, PTSD counseling, I believe they are

running a tremendous program. We have access to a program

called polytrauma recovery, and it is a tremendous program run

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out of Washington, DC, VA. However, the biggest problem they

have is none of the service members will receive benefit from that

program until each individual soldier has reached a mental state

where they were willing to go seek that treatment.

Mr. CUMMINGS. One of the questions I would ask some members

of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the other hearing went to the Bob

Woodruff piece that ran on ABC News a few nights ago with regard

to brain trauma and trauma to the head and how people can get

treatment here at Walter Reed, for example, but then, when they

go back to their rural areas or wherever they may go, small towns

or wherever, that they were not able to get followup. So they find

themselves going backward. Is that a concern of yours, Staff Sergeant?

Sergeant SHANNON. Absolutely. It is very much a concern of

mine, beginning with the start of the process for seeking the treatment where I was told you are not a bad enough brain injury to

need the polytrauma recovery. I got angry enough I had to get up

and leave. Usually when I have gotten angry and—well, I am a sergeant. Foul language starts coming out of my mouth. And that is

a point where I know a trigger is coming and I am going to get violent. They told me I don’t have a bad enough brain injury to need

treatment.

I have found out since then I am clearly a level two polytrauma

recovery person. The point being that proper supervision would be

the word that would have to be used in relation to that subject.

They have discovered that men suffer post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms from concussive force to their heads. We get mortared every day over there, depending where we were working.

Just because a guy has not got a visible injury does not mean he

does not have PTSD.

Mr. CUMMINGS. What about you, Mrs. McLeod, with regard to

your husband?

Mrs. MCLEOD. When my husband was here, they gave him psychological evaluation and treatment all because they thought it

was just a transition problem. I kept fighting and fighting. I knew

there was something wrong. When they sent him to Virginia he

was treated there as well.

When he come back, he got so out of hand that a friend of ours

who is also—her husband is a brain injury patient. She actually

took him to her husband’s psychiatrist, and that is how he got

started with psychiatry. They never offered him any psychiatric

treatment.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Let me say this, that—I have about 30 seconds

left—what I am hoping for is that we will not—not us but even

other Congressmen—in 5 years will not be sitting here going

through these same things. Hopefully, with Secretary Gates looking at the system and having the system revamped, we will be able

to resolve a lot of these problems.

We thank you very, very much for your service, and we can do

better as a country. We must do better.

Mrs. MCLEOD. Thank you.

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you, Mr. Cummings. Ms. Norton.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I thank

you and Chairman Tierney and Ranking Members Davis and Shays

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for your courtesy. I am a member of the full committee, not of the

subcommittee.

I am very proud of this hospital; all my life, have been proud to

have it in my district. I just want to say for the record, all the indications are that it is still the crown jewel, it is still the state-ofthe-art hospital on the planet for treating soldiers like you.

To say thank you for your service sounds so shallow after what

you have gone through, both in battle and here, that I want to just

move first to Mrs. McLeod, because thank you for your service

must include you who have been, apparently, a volunteer caseworker with considerable family sacrifice, having to give up home

and job to come here. I was very concerned when you said, What

about those who don’t have me? Because that is what I have been

thinking as a mother the whole time. What about those who don’t

have Mrs. McLeod?

May I ask, I mean, when you said you didn’t even know, you

weren’t even informed when your husband was wounded, were you

ever officially informed that he was wounded?

Mrs. MCLEOD. No. No one from the Army ever picked up the

telephone and called and said there has been an accident. Nobody

called me. He called me himself.

Ms. NORTON. This, I think, points to the systemic nature of the

problem. It begins on the battlefield and carries through throughout the life of the soldier.

Let me ask you, all three of you roughly—you cannot know, you

have not done a census, but you have been around this hospital—

roughly what percentage of soldiers are here—without family—are

here by themselves?

Specialist DUNCAN. I would say maybe about 25 percent or so,

maybe less. I have seen a lot of people here just by themselves.

Ms. NORTON. Twenty-five percent are here with family?

Specialist DUNCAN. Without. Could be less.

Ms. NORTON. Without family. So 75 percent of the soldiers here

have some family here; is that your sense as well?

Sergeant SHANNON. I don’t know if I would go that high, but in

the high range. One of the things that is being discovered right

now is having a family member close during this time of recovery

is incredibly beneficial to these soldiers as they go through this

process. These people understand them. Sometimes they are not coherent, based on medications and things, and it takes someone

with intimate knowledge of that individual and how they were on

a daily basis before to understand some of what they are trying to

get across and some of what they are going through based on their

knowledge of them before.

Ms. NORTON. Mrs. McLeod, I appreciate what you said about

leaving it to the family because families, obviously, want to take

care of their folks. But the fact is, there are very few women like

you here in the United States who give up everything to be here.

I don’t have much time, so I want to move on beyond accountability. They fired people, they knew they had to do something. I

want to move to remedy, and given the systemic nature of the

problem that a soldier’s life may be on dozens of computers which

don’t talk to one another and the rest, I am not focused so much

on long-term remedies because I think, you know, the Army can

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plunge into long-term remedies, and we have the same situation we

have now. We learned, for example, that a soldier could come here

and not know, not even be given a piece of paper at one point at

least saying, OK, this is what you do, A-B-C, these are kind of

short-term guidance that you would expect for any wounded soldier.

You might not expect for Eleanor Holmes Norton, she is supposed to be able to know she comes to find a doctor. But let me

ask you, given the systemic nature of the problem, whether or not

a remedy might involve immediate assignment of people who have

no—given what you have said about conflict of interest and the

rest—no obligation to anybody but the soldier and how many

such—not how many—but if that was to happen, should it be from

veterans organizations?

Mr. TIERNEY [presiding]. Who would you like to direct that question to?

Ms. NORTON. I would like to direct that to anyone who can give

me—basically it is if you think the soldiers would be better treated

if there were people outside of the system. The first people that

occur to me are people from veterans organizations. Would those be

people who would be most likely in the short term to be responsive

to the needs you have discussed in your testimony?

Mr. TIERNEY. Would one of you like to respond to that?

Sergeant SHANNON. No question in my mind. They have been

through it. They need to be advocates for it. When it comes down

to—well, like my total—being lost completely in the system when

I went outpatient, when I complained about it, they informed me

that I had spoken to someone within 24 hours of my arriving at

the hospital. Anybody want to laugh? I was under a lot of medication. I have no knowledge of anybody speaking to me within that

timeframe. In other words, they need to assess the patients and

give a time, say, brief them when they go outpatient instead of

when they arrive on an aircraft from Germany.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. The gentlewoman’s time has expired.

All time has expired for questioning. I want to thank you on behalf

of all the committee members and everyone else, your willingness

to come here, your commitments and sacrifices you have made as

well. We all wish you a speedy recovery for those of you that are

injured, and Dell as well, Mrs. McLeod, and to you, your situation.

Your coming here is a continuation of your service. I think you

have really benefited others that will come through here and others

that are presently in the system somewhere, and hopefully we will

be able to take your testimony and work toward improving situations as well.

So with that, we thank you very, very much. We will allow you

to take your leave now and step down. We appreciate all of your

time and commitment. Thank you.

Now we will invite our second panel also to take the seat as soon

as they can.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you and welcome, all of you. I would like

to begin by introducing our panel. On this panel we have Lieutenant General Kevin Kiley, M.D., the Surgeon General of the Army

and the past commander at Walter Reed. We have Major General

George Weightman, former commander of the Walter Reed Army

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Medical Center and North Atlantic Regional Medical Command.

We have Ms. Cynthia Bascetta, the Director of the Health Care Department at the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

Welcome to you all. Thank you for coming today. As you heard

before, it is our policy of the subcommittee to swear you in before

you testify. And I would ask you to rise and raise your right hands,

please.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. TIERNEY. The record will reflect that all of the witnesses answered in the affirmative. And with that, if we might, I would like

to ask each of you to give a brief summary of your testimony. Your

full testimony will be entered in the record. You have 5 minutes.

Obviously we will try to keep it as close to that time as we possibly

can. And we will try to give you some indication that you are nearing the end if we can. So we will start with General Kiley, please.

STATEMENTS OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL KEVIN C. KILEY,

M.D., U.S. ARMY SURGEON GENERAL; MAJOR GENERAL

GEORGE W. WEIGHTMAN, COMMANDER, WALTER REED

ARMY MEDICAL CENTER; AND CYNTHIA A. BASCETTA, DIRECTOR, HEALTH CARE, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE

STATEMENT OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL KEVIN C. KILEY, M.D.

General KILEY. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Shays, Mr. Waxman, Mr.

Davis and distinguished members of this committee, I am here

today to address your concerns about the quality of care, the quality of administrative process, and the quality of life for our wounded warriors here at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and across

all of our Army.

I am Lieutenant General Kevin Kiley. I am the Surgeon General

of the U.S. Army and the Commander of U.S. Army Medical Command. And as a commander, my first responsibility is for the

health and welfare of my soldiers. As a physician, my first responsibility is the health and welfare of my patient.

As we have seen over the last several days, the housing condition

here in one of the buildings here at Walter Reed clearly has not

met our standards. And for that I am personally and professionally

sorry. And I offer my apologies to the soldiers, the families, the civilian and military leadership of the Army and the Department of

Defense and to the Nation.

It is also clear that the complex and bureaucratic administration

systems that support the Medical Evaluation Board and the Physical Evaluation Board are complex and demand urgent simplification.

I am dedicated to doing everything in my power and authority

to bring a positive change to this process. Simply put, I am in command. And as I share these failures, I also accept the responsibility

and the challenge for rapid corrective action. We are taking immediate actions to improve the living conditions and welfare of our

soldier patients, to increase responsiveness of our leaders and the

medical system, and to enhance support services for families of our

wounded soldiers. We are taking action to put into place long-term

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solutions for the complex bureaucratic medical evaluation process

that is impacting on our soldiers.

Living conditions in Building 18 at Walter Reed are not acceptable. We are fixing them now. And as of this morning, we have

moved out all but six soldiers to other, better accommodations on

the campus.

Although Walter Reed base operations staff has corrected some

of the things that you have seen in the paper, we are taking immediate action to begin more extensive renovations of the roof, the exterior. We are going to remodel the bathrooms, put new carpets,

new air conditioning units into this facility to bring it up to what

we consider to be acceptable standards.

Lieutenant General Bob Wilson, the commander of the Installation Command, and I have sent a team out across 11 or so installations to look at similar bureaucratic, administrative, and clinical

conditions and infrastructure conditions to ensure that our other

installations do not have issues associated with here at Walter

Reed. So we know that we have had some mortar problems and we

are fixing them.

But we have human problems here, too, and this is about soldiers and their families. America’s soldiers go to war and they are

confident that if they are injured, they will be returned to a firstclass medical facility. It is said that a soldier won’t charge an objective out of the sight of a medic. For us it is the 68 whisky, and

there is a connection between that 68 whisky on the battlefield, the

transportation system, the air-vac system, Landstuhl Regional

Medical Center, Walter Reed and the rest of our facilities that is

unbroken. And nothing can be allowed to shake the confidence in

that system, including the superb performance of Walter Reed and

ensuring that our soldiers are cared for.

Secretary Gates has made it very clear that he expects decisive

action, and he and our soldiers will get it. You know, the system

that we use to decide if a soldier is medically fit for continued service or, if not, determine the appropriate disability system and

transferring him to the VA is complex, confusing, and frustrating.

What we have realized over these last 4 to 5 years is the nature

of the injuries these soldiers receive is also very complex. And I

will talk about that in just a minute.

The tactics, techniques and procedures we use in the asymmetric

battlefield are required to be changed to adjust to our enemies. The

procedures that we use in our medical system need to be changed

appropriately as we see the circumstances surrounding our soldiers

and their disabilities change. And what we really need to do, in my

opinion, is to make this whole process less confrontational, less adversarial.

To meet the human factor changes, we are making some adjustments here at Walter Reed. I think you have heard some of that

already. We are bringing on more nurses, case managers, more

Physical Evaluation Board liaison officers and more physicians to

review medical cases. This will lower the case ratio for case managers, improve communications and speed the processing of paperwork.

We really need to reinvent this process, and we have a team now

looking at interanalysis of the MEB process, the PEB process, to

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see if we can better improve it. The two most common complaints

we hear from soldiers about the MEB/PEB process is that we take

too long or we rush soldiers through. So we need to be very careful

to simultaneously provide soldiers the very best medical care that

modern science and medicine in America can offer, while at the

same time ensuring that the rights of those soldiers to a full and

equitable analysis is protected, and we will be very careful to protect the quality of the care and the fair assessment of soldier disability. We want all these soldiers to return to their units or to

their homes as quickly as they can. But we want them to benefit

from the full capability of modern medicine. We want to do it right.

Your Army medical professionals have earned a tremendous reputation during this war. The marvels of modern technology have allowed us to bring more soldiers off the battlefield, increase their

survival rates. The training of our combat medics and our frontline

surgeons, the equipment we have placed, as I referenced earlier,

our Air Force counterparts and their CCATT teams, moving soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines around the world is unprecedented. We can bring soldiers from the battlefield to this great facility in 36 hours or less.

Mr. TIERNEY. General, your comments are going to be put on the

record, so if you can help us by just concluding.

General KILEY. I will, sir.

In summary, I would say the staff here at Walter Reed, the technology we have applied, and the unwavering support of Congress

and the American people have made all this happen. It is regrettable that it took the Washington Post to bring some of this to

light, but in retrospect, it will help us accelerate the process of

making change and improving things.

I am committed personally to regaining the trust of the American

people, the soldiers and their families everywhere that our Army

medical department system can be trusted and that it is the best

in the world. I have served in the Army for 30 years as a physician

and soldier, taking care of patients and serving our Nation. And I

remain honored to command and lead the great men and women

of the Army Medical Department. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of General Kiley follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. General Weightman.

STATEMENT OF MAJOR GENERAL GEORGE H. WEIGHTMAN

General WEIGHTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congressman

Waxman, Congressman Davis, Congressman Shays, distinguished

members of the committee, I appreciate the opportunity to appear

today to discuss the problems about which we are all concerned,

brought to light at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

I am Major General George Weightman and I commanded the

North Atlantic Regional Medical Command and Walter Reed Army

Medical Center from August 25, 2006 until last week. Secretary of

Defense Gates, all of our Army leaders, and you have called this

a failure of leadership. I agree. I was Walter Reed Commander,

and from what we see with some soldiers’ living conditions and the

administrative challenges we faced and the complex Medical Board/

Physical Evaluation Board processes, it is clear mistakes were

made, and I was in charge. We can’t fail one of these soldiers or

their families, not one, and we did.

There is another point on which I believe we should agree, because it is important that the American people and our soldiers in

harm’s way believe that both inpatient and outpatient medical care

delivered by the professional health care team at Walter Reed are

superb. There are not two separate medical systems of care at Walter Reed. Outpatients are seen by the same doctors and nurses as

the inpatients. Outpatient medical care is not second class. It is on

a par with our inpatient care. You have seen this on your visits,

and our soldiers and families deserve it.

Having said that, I acknowledge there are problems and frustrations with a process of accessibility and following up on that outpatient care, and we are aggressively seeking ways and implementing solutions to make that system more responsive, more efficient,

more effective and more compassionate.

We do not see where some of these soldier-patients were living,

and we should have. There are 371 rooms on Walter Reed where

we house our outpatients at Walter Reed; 26 rooms in Building 18

were in need of repairs. We should not have allowed that to happen, because our soldiers deserve better, and it is important to

their overall rehabilitation and well-being which is entrusted to us.

Also, we do not fully recognize the frustrating bureaucratic and

administrative processes some of these soldiers go through. We

should have. And in this I failed.

Over the last 2 weeks, we have heard of problems from months

and years ago, many of them individually fixed immediately, but

we obviously missed the big picture because not one of those soldiers deserves to be satisfied. I am disappointed that I will not be

able to continue and lead the changes we must make to care for

these soldiers and their families but I respect the Army’s decision.

I retain and I hope that you would share the confidence in the

abilities of the Army leaders’ commitment and the Army Medical

Department, wonderful health care professionals who care for soldiers and create the innovative and long overdue process changes

that we all agree are needed.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing. I hope my

testimony today will allow us to address these problems and start

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to reaffirm America’s confidence in Walter Reed Army Medical

Center.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you sir.

Ms. Bascetta.

STATEMENT OF CYNTHIA A. BASCETTA

Ms. BASCETTA. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee,

thank you for inviting me here today to discuss GAO’s work on the

challenges encountered by soldiers who sustained serious injuries

in service to our Nation. Our work has shown the array of significant medical and administrative challenges these soldiers face

throughout their recovery process as they navigate the DOD and

VA health care and disability systems.

As you know, blasts and fragments from IEDs, landmines, and

other explosive devices cause about 65 percent of their injuries and

many more of the wounded are surviving serious injuries that

would have been fatal in prior wars. But the miracle of battlefield

medicine is also the enduring hardship of the war borne by the soldiers and their families. Following acute hospital care, their recovery often requires comprehensive inpatient rehabilitation to address complex cognitive, physical, and psychological impairments.

This exacts a huge toll on the patients and their families.

My testimony today is based on conditions we found during the

time of our audit work regarding problems with the sharing of

medical records, provision of vocational rehabilitation, screening for

post-traumatic stress disorder and military pay.

In 2006 we reported that DOD and VA had problems sharing

medical records for service members transferred from DOD to VA

polytrauma centers. These VA facilities were mandated in statute

to help treat seriously injured Active Duty service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet two VA facilities lack realtime

access to electronic medical records at DOD facilities. VA physicians reported a time-consuming process involving multiple faxes

and phone calls to get information they needed to treat their patients. I emphasize that these are patients still on Active Duty, not

veterans.

About 3 weeks ago, it was reported that DOD cutoff VA physicians’ access to DOD medical records because the two bureaucracies had not finalized data-use agreements. It is hard to fathom

such action and the potentially adverse effects that it could have

had on patient care.

In 2005 we reported that seriously injured soldiers may not be

able to benefit from early intervention services provided by VA.

GAO put Federal disability programs on its high-risk list in part

because they lack focus on returning people with disabilities to

work. The importance of early intervention for restoring injured

persons to their full potential is well documented in the literature.

But DOD expressed concerns that VA’s efforts to intervene early

could have conflicted with the military’s retention goals.

Meanwhile, soldiers treated as outpatients in military or VA hospitals were waiting months for DOD to assess whether they would

be able to return to Active Duty. We recommended that VA and

DOD collaborate to reach an agreement for VA to have access to

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information that both agencies agree is needed to promote recovery

and return to work, either in the military or in the civilian sector.

Also in 2006 we reported that DOD screen service members for

PTSD as part of its postdeployment health assessment, but could

not reasonably assure that those who needed referrals received

them. We found that only 22 percent of those who may have been

at risk of developing PTSD had been referred for further mental

health evaluation. DOD had not identified the factors its clinical

providers used in making referrals but concurred with our recommendations to do so.

As early as 2004 we also reported that officials at six out of

seven VA facilities were concerned about meeting an increasing demand for PTSD services from new veterans returning from the

war. They estimated that giving priority to these veterans, as they

had been directed to do, could delay appointments for veterans already receiving PTSD services by up to 90 days.

Compounding their health and rehabilitation struggles, we reported to this committee in 2005 and 2006 that problems related

to military pay had resulted in overpayments and debt for hundreds of sick and injured soldiers on Active Duty and in the National Guard and Reserves. Hundreds of combat-injured soldiers

were pursued for repayment of debt incurred through no fault of

their own, including at least 74 who were reported to credit bureaus and collection agencies.

As a result of our audit, we understand that manual overrides

are in place to help prevent this problem but that the underlying

payment systems have not been fixed. We also found that administrator problems had caused some injured Reserve component soldiers to be dropped from Active Duty. And for some, this led to significant gaps in both pay and health insurance.

In summary, I would not want to overlook the dedication and

compassion of the many providers we have met at DOD and VA facilities throughout the course of our work. But the cumulative message from our body of work is that too often our wounded soldiers

have been poorly served or are at risk of falling through the cracks

of the two bureaucracies responsible for their health and wellbeing. I would be happy to answer any questions you might have.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you Ms. Bascetta.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Bascetta follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. General Kiley, I understand that you might have

some time constraints. We can either address questions to you and

go through a round and then go back to the other two panelists or,

if you can, can you stay and we will deal with it as a panel?

General KILEY. Sir, I am at your discretion, however you would

like to do that.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

General Kiley, you were in charge of this facility at Walter Reed

from 2002 to 2004.

General KILEY. That is correct; yes, sir.

Mr. TIERNEY. How many months were you here altogether?

General KILEY. I believe I assumed command in June, so it was

just about 24 months.

Mr. TIERNEY. Two full years.

General KILEY. Yes, sir.

Mr. TIERNEY. Following you, was it General Farmer?

General KILEY. Yes, sir.

Mr. TIERNEY. He was here from 2004 to July 2006.

General KILEY. Yes, sir. Early August, I think.

Mr. TIERNEY. Then, General Weightman, you came in July 2006

to March 2007, a relatively short period of time compared to your

predecessors.

General WEIGHTMAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. TIERNEY. General Weightman, when you came in—platoon

sergeants, case managers, there was a significant gap in the ratio;

there were a lot of soldiers, 125, 130 to each platoon sergeant. Is

that correct?

General WEIGHTMAN. No, sir. That is not correct.

Mr. TIERNEY. What was the number that was there?

General WEIGHTMAN. The ratios that you cite were present when

we peaked out of our MedHold—MedHold population in the summer of 2005.

Mr. TIERNEY. Before you even came?

General WEIGHTMAN. Yes, sir. And at that point we realized we

only had one company to take care of all those soldiers. In January

2006, just a little over a year ago, a second company was created

and that is when we split out the Active Duty wounded warriors

into the Medical Hold Company, and that is when the ratio

dropped down from 1-to–125 to 1-to–50-to–55 for the Active Duty

soldiers and for the Med Holdover soldiers. Reserve component soldiers, that ratio is 1-to–25.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, sir. You were quoted in one of the articles that appeared, saying that you had also ordered your staff to

focus on the high-risk priorities such as PTSD. Was that not the

case before you made the order, the focus wasn’t at a level you

wanted it to be?

General WEIGHTMAN. Sir, it became apparent to me that we need

to focus on two different groups. We need to focus on the groups

that had been here the longest to see why they had been here so

long and if it was bureaucratic or clinical hurdles that they were

still facing. And there was another group that we found that had

either history of substance abuse, behavioral health issues, domestic violence, or alcohol abuse that we wanted to keep a very close

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eye on to make sure that they got the care in an expeditious manner that they could.

Mr. TIERNEY. None of these things were new to your watch,

though. These situations had been as predominant on General

Farmer’s watch and, presumably, before that as well. Correct?

General WEIGHTMAN. Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TIERNEY. At some point in time, General Weightman, the

Garrison Commander Peter Garibaldi, I believe, sent an internal

Army memo to you talking about a situation here with competitive

sourcing initiative, the President’s initiative allowing the Office of

Management and Budget under what they call the Circular 76 to—

I am sorry?

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. A–76.

Mr. TIERNEY. A–76. Allow you to bid out the private contractors,

let them submit a bid in competition with the Federal employees

in that process. And I think some of us were looking at that memo

and we are a bit disturbed because it seemed to call to your attention the issue of reduction in force, reduction in those employees

that was a pretty substantial falloff. And the commander’s comments to you were basically that there was a great risk to the

whole operation here as a result of that sharp decline. He warned

that the workload had grown exponentially since September 11, obviously, because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; that without

favorable consideration of the request for increased staff, that the

entire base operations of patient care services are at risk of mission

failure.

Can you tell us what led up to his writing that memo to you; and

then what action you took with respect to that memo and what response as you put that up the chain occurred?

General WEIGHTMAN. Yes, Mr. Chairman. The A–76 process has

been going on for, I think, about 3 or 4 years here at Walter Reed

and it has been bounced back and forth who wins that contract;

whether the government does or the independent contractor. As a

result, I think that not knowing what was going to be in the future

has affected the work force and particularly the one on garrison operations.

When Colonel Garibaldi floated that memo to me, it was outlined

where and what areas that we were at greatest risk. We passed

that memo up to our headquarters, and got support from them.

However, I will add at that point that about that same time, or

within a month or two after passing that memo up, we got support

for that, but we were not able to hire the additional workers that

we requested because the contract had been awarded to the contractor as opposed to government services. And previously the government had performed all those services itself. So we had trouble

attracting all the necessary people that we needed to those positions.

Mr. TIERNEY. It is reported, General Weightman, that in September 2004 the Army actually determined that the in-house Federal

work force at Walter Reed could perform the support services at a

lower cost than the bid that was received from the outside contractor, which is IAP Worldwide Services. Despite that, there was an

appeal taken, and we have seen no record of why this happened,

but apparently when certification of the Federal employees was

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withdrawn, unilaterally the employee bid was raised about $7 million dollars and the determination was reversed in favor of the private company, IAP.

Can you tell us about that process and what happened there?

General WEIGHTMAN. No, sir I cannot. That happened before I

came.

Mr. TIERNEY. As a result of that, a number of people, at least according to this memo, went from about 300 people down to about

60 on February 3, 2007. Did you see your personnel decline to that

degree?

General WEIGHTMAN. Sir, not to that degree. They did decline

from a work force normally of about 190, it declined to close to 100.

It did not get down to 60 but it did get down to 100.

Mr. TIERNEY. General Kiley, did this process of the competitive

sourcing initiative happen on your watch?

General KILEY. Yes, sir. It began on my watch and then the

issues of awarding the contract first to the MEO and then the appeals was after I left Walter Reed, took command of MEDCOM.

Mr. TIERNEY. So you were not there when the reversal of determination came over from the Federal employees to the private contractors?

General KILEY. I think that was in the fall of 2004, sir, and I was

not the commander then.

Mr. TIERNEY. So where is General Farmer these days?

General KILEY. Sir, he is retired.

Mr. TIERNEY. Would it have been on his watch then that whole

process would have played out, and at some point the private contractor would have been given the award of $125 million over 5

years?

General KILEY. Yes, sir. Under the direction of the Army and

contracting services that managed those, and I don’t know specifically the name of that, General Farmer would not specifically make

the decision as to who to award the contract to. Those decisions are

made, I believe, by the Army, not by us. If I am correct.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Shays.

Mr. SHAYS. I would like Mr. Davis to go.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I think these problems are far more systematic than going back to an A–76 or anything else, or even some

of the things happening just right here on the post. What you have

is a number of stovepipes. You have the Army not talking to the

VA. You have the National Guard and the Army not speaking to

each other and people are falling through the cracks.

Ms. Bascetta, would you agree with that?

Ms. BASCETTA. Yes, sir, I would.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. These are systemic problems and really

we have known about these problems for years, haven’t we?

Ms. BASCETTA. That is correct.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. This recent manifestation really

shouldn’t surprise anybody. In fact, when I look back at a memorandum of October 12, 2006—this is after Walter Reed officials

were asked to attend our committee’s quarterly briefing on medical

holdovers—I requested a copy of the Assistant Secretary’s analysis

and review, their SAR report. This review was conducted by individuals from all of the medical commands involved in all of the

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processes, including installation management. It clearly indicates

the review teams had concerns with Building 18’s ability, staffing,

the soldiers handbook, training, outprocessing, separation transition, patient transportation and the Medical Evaluation Boards. Attached to the review is a memo that was signed by Colonel Ronald

Hamilton, the commander, that indicates that you, General

Weightman, and General Kiley, received a copy of this review in

October. Do you remember receiving a copy or being briefed on it?

General WEIGHTMAN. Yes, sir, I do.

General KILEY. I believe I did, yes, sir.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. It really wasn’t the Washington Post.

You knew these were problems. You may not have known specifically what it looked like, and you may not have been able to put

faces and stories behind it, but this was an ongoing concern, wasn’t

it?

General KILEY. Well, yes, sir. And it was not just at Walter Reed.

We were concerned about, you know, Medical Holdover operations

and Medical Hold operations at all of our installations.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. What did you do when you saw this report in October? We know what you are doing now, after you saw

the Post articles. What did you do in October to try to stay ahead

of it?

General KILEY. My staff informed me that the Walter Reed staff

was working it, that they recognized that there were issues and

that they were taking action.

General WEIGHTMAN. Sir, may I address some of the specifics on

that? We realized that some of the problems with how long it took

our patients to get through the medical board process, that we

needed more physicians trained in the MEB process and to help

move those records. So we added three different physicians, part

time, to work on those records, and we also designated an 06, a

colonel, to be in charge of that whole process.

We also recognized we didn’t have enough of the PEBLO counselors available—and I think you have already heard from previous

testimony their role in counseling and being the patients’ advocate

in this whole process—realized that they needed more training and

they were inadequate in number. So we have increased those and

that started after this report. We also realized that we didn’t have

enough of the case managers as well to work with the patients

within the Medical Hold and Medical Holdover Companies. And we

began active recruiting efforts for those as well.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. General Kiley, you are no stranger to

this committee. You came before us in 2005. During your testimony

at that point you assured us that improvements were being made

to the Medical Holdover process. This was at the point where we

had numerous soldiers come up and talk about how they had fallen

through the process, how they languished; their orders would be

they would leave from the Army and go back to the Guard and

they were in kind of a limbo. And you reported that point, you stated, under oath, MHO soldiers can expect their treatment and recovery experience to meet or exceed that of the Active component,

because the Army’s Surgeon General has made their care at the

medical treatment facilities top priority.

That was your position at that point.

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General KILEY. Yes, sir.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. But it didn’t happen, did it?

General KILEY. Sir, in my role as the MEDCOM commander,

Walter Reed was not my only command—Southeast Regional Medical Command, Brooke, and Tripler. In my discussions routinely

with my senior commanders, we discussed the issues of Medical

Holdover processing because we had often heard—I had heard, as

the Walter Reed commander, that our Reserve and National Guard

soldiers felt like they were not getting the same priorities as Active

Duty. So I made it clear that, at a minimum, there would be no

difference. And in many cases these soldiers, because they were

staying at our camps, posts, and stations instead of going home,

there was a sense of urgency to get them to the head of the line,

to get the evaluations done.

And my comments about a good news story was the numbers of

soldiers that we were able to heal and return to the force on the

order of magnitude of about 80 percent of those soldiers in Med

Holdover.

So my take on this and my comments to your committee were

that, while we have problems, and we continue to have those problems, we were still caring for and healing and returning to the

force a large number.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. General, our problem I think is a systemic problem that we have more people coming back than was anticipated. We have antiquated systems integrating the Reserves

and the Guard and the Army back and forth. It is a paperwork

nightmare. It is a labyrinth that you would need a Ph.D. and law

degree and you still can’t navigate yourself through, and the frustration of these poor injured veterans coming back. This is systemic. I am afraid this is just the tip of the iceberg, that when we

go out into the field, we may find more. Ms. Bascetta.

Ms. BASCETTA. I think that is—certainly from our work, it would

warrant a top-to-bottom review of the situation across the country.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Keep putting a Band-Aid on something.

It needs a complete overhaul it seems to me.

Mr. TIERNEY. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Waxman.

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General Kiley, according to a Washington Post article on Saturday, former Army Secretary Francis Harvey described a telephone conversation that he

had with you, and he said that after the Walter Reed story broke

in the Washington Post, you called him and lambasted the Washington Post reports of squalid conditions, and you said the Post

story was yellow journalism at its worst.

Did you tell the Army Secretary that you felt The Post story was

yellow journalism at its worst?

General KILEY. Sir, I had as I remember a couple conversations

from the start of the publication of the Post with the Secretary. I

believe one was in person. I had a discussion with him over an article in the Army Times where he asked me to call him back. And

I called him back, told him I would go through that. And then I

had a discussion with him when he called me——

Mr. WAXMAN. Whatever discussions you had with him, did you

say to him that report was yellow journalism at its worst?

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General KILEY. I don’t believe my comment—my comment to the

Secretary about yellow journalism was directed at the larger report, but a follow-on article that took a series of facts that included

me and began to say that, you know, what did I know and when

did I know it, and I didn’t think that was necessarily a fair article.

Mr. WAXMAN. You are talking about the Washington Post articles?

General KILEY. All of them. Yes, sir.

Mr. WAXMAN. OK. Are you denying the accounts of the soldiers

in the Post article or what happened to these soldiers?

General KILEY. No, sir. No, sir.

Mr. WAXMAN. And then what were you outraged about?

General KILEY. I was disappointed that the articles characterized

the fact that I had been in command from 2002 and that I was

aware of some of the circumstances that the Post was revealing in

its stories in 2005 and 2006, and that somehow I had known about

them. And other parts of that article that I didn’t think were accurate.

Mr. WAXMAN. So after you left—when did you leave?

General KILEY. I left in 2004.

Mr. WAXMAN. After you left, you didn’t know what happened

here?

General KILEY. No, sir, that is not correct. But I was the next

higher commander. I had a two-star commander in command, managing Walter Reed as well as the North Atlantic Region, and, as

with General Weightman, we had routine videoconferences to talk

about issues not just related to Med Holdover but to the BRAC, to

A–76.

Mr. WAXMAN. You had these conversations complaining about

how you were treated in the articles. Did you say in any of your

conversations, we have to do something, we have to investigate this

problem and straighten it out?

General KILEY. I am sorry. To who, sir?

Mr. WAXMAN. To the head of the Army with whom you talked.

General KILEY. Oh, to Secretary Harvey?

Mr. WAXMAN. Yes.

General KILEY. Yes, sir. We talked about getting engaged and

finding out what was going on, getting an action plan together to

fix those immediate problems we could fix and starting to look at

the long-term issues, some of which we had already been taking on,

to include my TBI task force, mental health task force, and issues

at looking specifically at the MEB/PEB process.

Mr. WAXMAN. Now, the chairman asked about this contracting

out. And this contracting out, according to the memo that was prepared—which I presume you saw, is that correct?

General KILEY. Colonel Garibaldi’s memo?

Mr. WAXMAN. Yes. You saw it and, General Weightman, you saw

that memo as well.

General WEIGHTMAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. WAXMAN. That memo warned about mission failure; in other

words the failure to provide care that Walter Reed was supposed

to provide because of the loss of personnel. There were 350 government employees working here. The A–76 process decided to contract out that work to a private organization. So they didn’t start

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for a whole year, and during that year, the people who knew they

were going to lose their job started leaving. They went to the private sector, they went to other places in the Department of Defense, they went to wherever they could find new jobs. So by the

time the new contractor took his place a year later, as I understand

it, there were only 60 employees left of the 350. Do you know

whether that is an accurate statement, either of you?

General WEIGHTMAN. Sir, I think I addressed that earlier, and

I believe that the lower number was 100, not 60. And I think we

had 180 people earlier in the year. So it didn’t go from 300-plus

down to——

Mr. WAXMAN. You didn’t think it was 350? You think that is an

inaccurate figure?

General WEIGHTMAN. I believe so, sir.

Mr. WAXMAN. So how many do you think were here when the

contract was let out?

General WEIGHTMAN. When the actual—was about 100, sir.

Mr. WAXMAN. About 100?

General WEIGHTMAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. WAXMAN. How many people were still here when the contractor a year later took over?

General WEIGHTMAN. I am sorry, sir. I misspoke. When the actual contractor took over on February 4, 2007, that is when we had

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Mr. WAXMAN. The memo said that you are short of staff, the contractor has taken over, you are short of staff, the mission is threatened, and asked for more staff to be hired. Was more staff hired?

General WEIGHTMAN. Yes, sir. I think I addressed that previously. We did get permission to hire more staff. Our ability to

hire those additional 80 people was not successful, in that they

knew that the contract was coming up, and if they got hired it

would only be for 4 months.

Mr. WAXMAN. So did the memo ask you to hire 80 more?

General WEIGHTMAN. Yes, sir. I believe it did.

Mr. WAXMAN. How many did you actually hire?

General WEIGHTMAN. Ten, sir.

Mr. WAXMAN. When did they come onboard?

General WEIGHTMAN. Sir, I don’t have that information, but it

would be between October and November 2006.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, the only thing I would raise is we

have contracted out so much of this war, we have mercenaries instead of U.S. military. We have contractors instead of the work

that can be done by checking very carefully what kind of job they

are doing. And here at Walter Reed we had contracted out as well.

And the result of all of this is we are, in Iraq, overpaying for the

work of the contractors, and here we are underserving our military

and something has to be done about that.

Mr. TIERNEY. I thank the gentleman. I remind you that the

Comptroller General of the Government Accountability Office has

made that same point, that the contracting out has raised a problem. I suspect we will be exploring that in future hearings.

But, General Weightman, you said there were 180 when it first

went down, and down to 100 when it finally kicked in. So I think

those are the numbers, at least as opposed to the 350 and 60.

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General WEIGHTMAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. Mr. Shays.

Mr. SHAYS. What I wrestle with is that there is not anyone involved in this that didn’t know there were challenges. Mr. Waxman

has gone through a whole host of reports, which he and I both can

read and do read. How can we know when a problem is being addressed? In other words, this committee has had hearings, and the

word is back, you know, it is getting taken care of. Is it something

where we need to have hearings every 2 months? And is there a

mindset that to be a good soldier you have to basically, you know,

stiff upper lip and just tell Congress, you know, we are taking care

of it and so on, when you know you don’t have the resources necessary to take care of it?

That is what I am wrestling with. I feel like in some ways some

people are going to take the hit on this, and are they taking the

hit on this because they didn’t tell us? Because frankly, I will just

make this last point. These problems are huge. The only reason

why this story got attention is there was something visual, there

was mold on a wall, but the mold on the wall is, in fact, the tip

of the iceberg. And so help me out because you are going and people are going to say it is going to be taken care of, and then 2

weeks from now or 2 months from now, how do we know it is?

General KILEY. Sir, I agree with you. The mold is a brick-andmortar issue. We have it—we have it fixed in Building 18. We are

examining all the rest of the brick and mortar in Medical Command to make sure we don’t have those kinds of issues.

Mr. SHAYS. See, I think that is the easy part.

General KILEY. Yes, sir. The second piece is the thing I referenced, is the heretofore not fully realized complexity of the injuries of these great young Americans. I am a cochair of the Mental

Health Task Force with Senators Boxer and Lieberman and are

coming to closure on our work this last year. The issues of mental

health, PTSD, late emerging PTSD, the issues of TBI, traumatic

brain injury, how to diagnose.

Mr. SHAYS. I don’t know what you are saying to me.

General KILEY. What I am saying is these are very complex patients that are severely injured in multiple emotional, physical, and

mental ways.

And then finally, sir, we are going to have a long-term challenge

to continue to care for these soldiers and their families over time.

Mr. SHAYS. I know that. I guess what I am trying to understand

is how does it get solved? How many caseworkers do we have?

What is the workload of each caseworker?

General WEIGHTMAN. Sir, those average about 1-to–25 to 1-to–30.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Under oath you are saying that is what it is?

General WEIGHTMAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. So why would a, you know, Sergeant Shannon basically have to find his own way and have to find his own caseworker

without his caseworker finding him? I feel like these men and

women are almost in prison in the bureaucracy. They could be

here. It is kind of like the old song of the Kingston Trio, you know,

in the subway underneath the streets. That is the way it feels to

me. So explain that to me.

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General WEIGHTMAN. Sir, it is absolutely right. We did not have

a foolproof system to hand off our inpatients to the outpatient care.

We had a system that probably was accurate about 80 percent of

the time. And about 20 percent of the time—and I assume Sergeant Shannon falls into that group—we did not do a good handoff

of those patients. So he went from being an inpatient on one of our

wards to his platoon sergeant and his case manager picking him

up.

Mr. SHAYS. So, Ms. Bascetta, maybe you could help me out. You

write these reports. They are available to Congress. They are available to the press, even the press. So this is nothing new. All of us,

in a sense, are made aware of these problems. How do you know

when the problem is being addressed? And how do you get

around—and how do we deal with people telling us they are being

addressed when they are not?

Ms. BASCETTA. Well, when we make recommendations, we always followup on those recommendations to ensure that they have

been implemented. But in this case, we have been very frustrated

that we bring things to DOD’s attention over and over, and we see

that they fix certain problems on an individual basis, but the systemic fixes don’t seem to happen. And sometimes I think that part

of the problem is that the rules and regulations are so monumental

that we are focused more on that and not on the patients.

Mr. SHAYS. This is what I think, and I will conclude with the few

seconds I have left. I believe that basically it is part of your

mindset that says if you are not going to get the resources, your

job is to basically come to Congress and say, we are getting the job

done. And that I feel like—and frankly, that is almost—not almost—it is being dishonest. It is being dishonest to yourself, and

it is being dishonest to us. And I will look forward to the day when

someone who is in a uniform comes to us and says under oath, I

am not getting the resources I need to do my job.

General KILEY. Mr. Chairman, may I respond to that?

Mr. TIERNEY. Briefly.

General KILEY. I said this, sir, in public. The Congress has given

the U.S. Army Medical Command under my command everything

I have asked for in terms of resources. The challenge is in some

of the issues that we are addressing, which is how do we best apply

those resources to best care for soldiers and then hand them off to

the VA. I agree with you there are issues, there are gaps in the

system, both electronic medical records, handoffs. I have assigned

Army personnel——

Mr. SHAYS. I understand. My time is up. But what you are saying, though, under oath is that you have all the resources necessary. And I honestly don’t believe that. I don’t believe it.

General KILEY. OK.

Mr. TIERNEY. I think Mr. Duncan made the point of $450 billion

in the Defense budget and I think maybe there is some truth to

the matter that there are resources there and there are priorities.

But I hear your point as well. Mr. Lynch.

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, I just want

to say I have read this record pretty thoroughly. And, General

Weightman, I have to say that you, having only been in this position for 6 months, you probably have a little bit more blame being

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laid at your doorstep than I think is probably appropriate. I just

want to get that on the record from my reading of this.

Ms. Bascetta, you are aware that GAO conducted a review of the

Army’s system for evaluating the fitness of wounded soldiers to

stay in the service.

Ms. BASCETTA. Yes.

Mr. LYNCH. OK. I am just stuck on this number. I noticed that

the Navy has an approval rate of about 35 percent for those who

apply for, you know, retirement through disability. And the the Air

Force, their approval rate is around 24 percent. Then I noticed the

Army, which has a greater number of individuals applying, has an

approval rate of about 4 percent.

Now, I am just curious if you looked at that. I know you just did

the Army. But did you look as a comparison as to what is going

on and could you help me with this? Could you explain why those

numbers look the way they do?

Ms. BASCETTA. What I can tell you is that in our review of the

disability system, we noticed first of all that the services don’t always follow the same procedures. But, more importantly, they don’t

have a quality assurance mechanism in place to assure that the decisions that are made are consistent across the services. And without knowing that, it is difficult to explain whether the variations

that you are seeing and those award rates are reasonable or not.

Mr. LYNCH. OK. Let me ask you this. Recently the Secretary of

Defense appointed an independent panel to review all of this. Now,

it is an independent review commission. It is headed by former Secretary Togo West and also former secretary Jack Marsh, both outstanding individuals. But I just question whether it is independent.

Both of these men are just—they are just top notch, but they are

Army to the core. And I am just wondering if we are looking for

an independent review, truly independent, someone that can be

critical of this whole process. I just question, in your own mind, in

conducting a review like this, and while I have—again, I have enormous respect for Togo West and Jack Marsh, but I wonder if these

are the best people for an independent and impartial review, since

these two men I know absolutely love the U.S. Army. And I am

questioning whether or not they can be objective about the problems here.

Ms. BASCETTA. I can certainly understand your concern. I can tell

you that there is a lot of work going on reviewing the disability systems both in the VA and in the DOD. There is a Veterans Benefits

Commission that is looking at those issues now and the discrepancies between the ratings that are given in the DOD, comparing

them to those that are given in the VA for the same service members.

Mr. LYNCH. OK. And last, before I yield back, General Kiley, I

don’t always trust the newspapers. But the Post had some quotes

that you thought that the story was unfair. I know that Chairman

Waxman mentioned it a little earlier, and that you felt that this

was not a failure or a horrible situation at Walter Reed. Your comments were in conflict with the Secretary of the Army on the same

issue. He said there was definitely a failure and that it was inexcusable. ‘‘Inexcusable’’ was the word he used.

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Are your own thoughts the same as you sit here today, that you

thought this was a one-sided report and that it didn’t fairly represent the situation?

General KILEY. Sir, just to make sure I am clear on this, the

original reports about the soldiers and the conditions of Building

18, again, I did not label that as yellow journalism. There was a

follow-on article later that was focused on me that I had some concerns about and did say, in a private conversation with the Secretary, that I thought it was yellow journalism.

What I did say and what you referenced, Mr. Lynch, was earlier

on, my concern that the issues in Building 18 which were clearly

unacceptable, clearly unacceptable, and were a failure of leadership

at the junior level in that building. My concern for the American

people and for the Army and for soldiers was that some of the

descriptors in the larger articles would be construed as if the entire

Walter Reed system was a failure and that soldiers were being left

to languish, were forgotten and lost, and that Building 18

emblemized that. And I don’t disagree that a visual image makes

a big difference. But I know that——

Mr. LYNCH. I don’t have much time. Let me just ask you, these

are the words and you can tell me, sir.

Mr. TIERNEY. Your time has actually expired, but we will let you

ask one quick question.

Mr. LYNCH. The quote here is that ‘‘I am not sure if it was an

accurate representation. It was a one-sided representation. It is not

the Ritz-Carlton at Pentagon City. I want to reset the thinking.

And while we have some issues here, this is not a horrific catastrophic failure at Walter Reed.’’

I just want to know if that is—I don’t trust news stories generally, and I just want to know if that is your thinking.

General KILEY. I did say that and I was not attempting to be at

odds with Secretary Gates. I think we have some issues of leadership here, but we have great facilities and a great medical system,

and I was concerned that the whole thing would come down on the

basis of some of these specific issues.

Mr. TIERNEY. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Waxman, you had one

followup.

Mr. WAXMAN. I would like like Generals Kiley and Weightman

to answer yes or no, in light of the memo by Mr. Garibaldi and the

experience we have seen, do you think it was a mistake to have

contracted out the services as was done?

General KILEY. Certainly, we must, with our ability to look at

when has happened, I think it may, we probably could have done

it better, maybe we shouldn’t have done it at all.

General WEIGHTMAN. Sir, I don’t think it was a mistake. I think

we suffered from having a prolonged period from when we had the

switchover. Since February 4th, the contractor has done very well.

Mr. WAXMAN. I wasn’t arguing the contractor didn’t do well. Do

you think it was a mistake to contract it out——

Mr. TIERNEY. The gentleman’s time has expired. Mr. Davis.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. There was congressional interference in

that as well wasn’t there.

General WEIGHMAN. Yes, sir.

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Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. And some doubt and that stretched out

the time period, is that correct?

General WEIGHTMAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. TIERNEY. General Kiley, apparently there are those who feel

differently than you and I did about this. They asked if they could

get you somehow removed from this thing as quickly as possible.

I was hoping the remaining Members who have not asked questions yet, if you have questions you would like to ask specifically

of General Kiley, perhaps indicate that and then we will recognize

Members and then we will let General Kiley, go and then ask General Weightman and ask Ms. Bascetta to stay longer if that is OK

with them.

Mr. Cooper, you had a question.

Mr. COOPER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

General Kiley, in today’s Washington Post, it says, this referring

to you, ‘‘his last concern was his concern for the patient,’’ said retired Colonel Robert Tabachnikoff chief of obstetrics and gynecology

under Kiley in Landstuhl in mid 1990’s. Tabachnikoff said ‘‘Kiley

wanted him to discharge new mothers within 24 hours of delivery

to keep beds free and counted phone calls as office visits.

‘‘He was more concerned for meeting requirements and advancing his own career. At last, it is catching up with him. His leadership style is being exposed.’’

Do you have a comment?

General KILEY. Well, needless to say I don’t think that is a fair

characterization of what we were doing at Landstuhl regional Medical Center at the time. I would be happy to address the specifics

of the 24-hour discharge program which mothers called for. They

want to go home. Workload and capturing what we do instead of

ignoring it. And by the way, I would differentiate a mother who

wants to go home at 24 hours from one that has to go home at 24

hours. We never did that. But, you know I don’t—I’m not sure I

need to comment any more on it than that. The doctor worked for

me at Landstuhl, as I remember, back in the 90’s.

Mr. COOPER. How about office visits becoming telephone calls?

General KILEY. Well, the question there was my providers felt

frustrated that the the work they did talking to patients wasn’t

counting as part of the workload that the hospital did that they got

credit for, so that we could get more money, that there was an

issue of, you know, if I spend 20 minutes on the phone with a patient, that ought to be an office call. And we had no way to capture

that data, as I remember, and get credit for it—which is not necessarily a game and it is not necessarily about workload.

I have spent my entire life taking care of patients, training doctors to take care of patients. And I am committed to Army medicine and committed to taking care of soldiers and their families. I

take exception to his view of me as doing all this just for a career

and not caring about patients. I don’t think that is correct.

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Chairman, I had one quick question.

Mr. TIERNEY. Yes, Ms. Foxx.

Ms. FOXX. Thank you. Thank you, General Kiley. I want to ask,

you mentioned at the beginning that what needs to be done is simplification.

General KILEY. Yes, ma’am.

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Ms. FOXX. We are interested in again in accountability and I

think simplification needs to be done too. Do you feel confident that

you can institute simpler measures of accountability, simpler ways

of getting the job done, that will stick? I think most people are concerned, as some of the previous witnesses said, that all we are

doing is going to paint over this issue. What I am interested in,

again, is systemic change. And systemic change is not just going

to work here at Walter Reed, as you said, but it is going to work

throughout the system, and that perhaps could be a model for

other Government agencies.

So tell us how we are going to know—as some of the other questions have been asked—how are we going to know that this process

is better? How can we monitor it? How can we make sure that it

is going to go systemwide?

General KILEY. I think that is a very good question. I think we

need transform it first, because if we just apply more yardsticks

and bells and whistles to the present process, we will just get much

better at measuring bells and whistles.

I think we need to relook at the relationship between the MEB

and the PEB which is, in fact, in many regards, despite the best

the efforts of both groups of people, adversarial. The physician is

attempting to capture all the data, make sure the soldier is as

healed as he or she is going to be, and make sure you have an accurate record with tests etc., hand it to the Physical Evaluation

Board, which is driven by law, by DOD regulations and by regs, to

apportion out disability in a system that doesn’t recognize the

whole person, like the VA system does. And all of that sets up an

immediate adversarial role, where, frankly, in some cases, nobody

wins on this.

I think the Army is taking this on even as we speak. I know I

am taking it on to look at the process inside organizations like

Walter Reed with the MEB process and the kickback. But I think

we are going to have to reduce 22 different forms to fill out to go

through this process. It may be as simple as getting rid of the line

of duty and commander statement and start giving the benefit of

the doubt to the soldier so that when they come back from Iraq

missing a limb, that was in the line of duty. It was combat. And

we don’t need some be to send us a piece of paper to validate it.

I think we also have to understand it is going to take time for

these soldiers to heal. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt, retire them and then in 3 to 5 years, if they are fully recovered, we

can bring them back and process them.

But what we do now, because we want to give the soldiers the

best chance, is we hold on to them so our numbers grow at all our

installations. Some of them feel like they are being pushed out too

quickly. We say we got it, we figured out what is going on with

you.

And then the last piece, again I say, is we have still not come

to grips with the PTSD TBI process that most all of these soldiers

to one extent or another have to deal with. And those are not particularly well recognized to date, particularly in the physical disabilities system.

142

I hope to bring some light to that with the mental health task

force and the traumatic brain injury task force that I launched last

fall to start looking at this.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, General. General, once again your

plans have changed and you no longer have an appointment later

today. That has been postponed. We are just going to fly right

through on our regular order and see if we can’t bring this panel

to a conclusion and appreciate the time you spent so far. If Members don’t feel they have a question to present at this time that has

already been asked, that is perfectly fine as well. We’ll try to go

as quickly as we can. Maybe some Members won’t feel as compelled

to do as complete a 5 minutes as others. So Mr. Platts.

Mr. PLATTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General Kiley, General

Weightman, Mrs. Bascetta, I appreciate all of your testimony and

your service to our Nation, and especially generals, your many

years of service in uniform.

In a previous question, Representative Shays talked about the

bricks and mortar maybe being the easier of things to see and fix

and the second challenge is greater. And I kind of put that in the

human capital management of how we use people we have to provide the service. And a common theme that seems to come across

in the GAO finding and you have talked about is that handoff. And

it was well identified in the first panel, and I think we all agree

with Staff Sergeant Shannon, Specialist Duncan, Corporal and

Mrs. McLeod, their stories are unacceptable and should not happen.

And you look at Staff Sergeant Shannon 5 days after he is shot

and seriously injured in Iraq, he is basically put into outpatient

here, which speaks volumes about how quickly we got him here,

but within 5 days of that traumatic injury that he is on his own

and basically given a map. And that handover obviously didn’t happen.

How confident are you today that handover first from inpatient

to outpatient is not the case anymore, and that there is a smoother

transition?

General WEIGHTMAN. Sir, I am absolutely confident that we have

a system now in place that we have a physical handoff from inpatient to outpatient——

Mr. PLATTS. To the case manager or to the platoon sergeant?

General WEIGHTMAN. To platoon, the sergeant certainly. But as

you spoke to there is multiple handoffs because once they become

an outpatient, you have to hand off their care to the MEB process.

And then you have to hand off their care to the PEB process. And

then you may very well may have to hand off their care to the VA.

And those are the transitions that I think that we feel that we

need to put a lot more work into. That is where we failed.

Mr. PLATTS. That was my followup. The first one being into outpatient, and then it seems like to the soldiers and their families

that once they go there, there is no one place to say, here is where

I am supposed to be dealing with to get the care and support I

need. And that is very much on the radar now, I am hearing you

say and we are seeking to address.

General WEIGHTMAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. PLATTS. Specifically on the handoff VA.

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If I understood your oral testimony, Ms. Bascetta, is that in a

few weeks back that there was a DOD decision to deny VA physicians access to DOD medical records as part of that handoff? And

is that still the case?

Ms. BASCETTA. I can’t tell what you what the current situation

is. I can tell you that it was reported, I believe it was on February

16th that their access—and these are the VA physicians in the

polytrauma centers who had their access cutoff without warning.

Mr. PLATTS. General Kiley, are you aware, is that the situation

today?

General KILEY. As I understand it as I sit here today yes, sir, it

is. I think the access that was denied to the VA physicians comes

out of the joint patient tracking system. And that is a data base

that picks up patients, troops as they enter into the system coming

out of theater of operations through Landstuhl and back to Cohensbased facilities. And in that system, doctors that have access to

JPTA and are authorized to be entering clinical data about patients

enter clinical data.

As I understand it, just through a couple of e-mails, at some

point, someone recognized that all physicians in the VA had access

to the joint patient tracking system and that our lawyers—and I

don’t mean my lawyers—but I believe it was DOD, health affairs

lawyers—I don’t know that for sure—but that is my suspicion, said

that had the potential to be a HIPAA violation because if a soldier

coming back is not necessarily a designated patient for a VA physician, then that physician really doesn’t have a need to know about

that data.

Mr. PLATTS. Are we getting in to make sure that the VA physicians who do have a need to know retain the access? Because it

sounds like what we have done is shut off everybody.

General KILEY. I think we have sir and I don’t know where we

are.

Mr. PLATTS. If we could have a followup——

General KILEY. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

Mr. PLATTS. That would be very helpful. If I may a final quick

question on the case manager issue.

In the earlier testimony, Ms. McLeod talked about a case manager denying an MRI that a doctor had ordered. Is that permissible

and does that occur? Because it seems contrary to everything we

want where the medical professionals are making the decisions.

General WEIGHTMAN. Sir, that is not permissible. And it should

not occur. It does. And how that probably manifests itself out is

that case manager is responsible for scheduling that exam. So if

that case manager does not schedule the exam, it is essentially denied. But they do not have the ability to overrule that.

Mr. PLATTS. Is there disciplinary action if that comes to light

that they overrule——

General KILEY. Absolutely because doctor’s orders take precedence.

Mr. PLATTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Yarmuth.

Mr. YARMUTH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

In listening to both this panel and the panel that preceded it, it

seems like we have two problems we are dealing with. One is findVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:03 Mar 20, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00147 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\40852.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ing out about problems and whether there is an adequate system

in place to uncover these problems, and the second problem, of

course, is how we find out what to do about it and who is responsible for that.

In today’s Washington Post story, for instance, there was a mention that we are getting reports now from all over the country, people calling and families calling journalists even from my own State,

Fort Knox and Fort Campbell, and reporting similar problems.

My question is, one could infer from listening to this that the

Army relies on people telling the next level, the next rank, about

problems rather than there being some kind of accountability, some

kind of mandate on the commander to say, this is part of our job

to find out whether proper service is being rendered at every level.

Is there a deficiency there? Are we relying on a bottom up type

of reporting mechanism? Do you see that as a problem or not?

General WEIGHTMAN. Sir, I think there has been a failure. We

have three or four different mechanisms here at Walter Reed for

patients and patient family members to tell us about issues that

they have, whether it is IG complaints, whether it is commanders

open door policy, whether it is surveys that come out that we do

periodic surveys, the town hall meetings, the new comers orientations you have heard about. Based on those, I feel that for whatever reason, we were not getting an adequate feedback from the

patients and from the patients family members about all of the

concerns that they had.

Mr. YARMUTH. Don’t you think that proper management technique would be that the highest level of management—and I am

not necessarily putting it on your desk. Maybe it should be in the

Pentagon—has to create ways and actually has to make an affirmative effort to find out whether proper service is being given at every

level? Is that not a responsibility of the highest command?

General KILEY. Yes, sir. My role as MEDCOM commander, I

have accountability at the Army across all installations similar to

Walter Reed holding my commanders both the regional flag officers

and the individual local hospital commanders accountable for the

health care delivery in conjunction with, you know, General Wilson, who manages, often manages the infrastructure solutions. And

I send teams out—the assistant secretary of the Army sends teams

out.

I send my IG out. And we visit all the posts and camps over the

year, getting assessments. Additionally, we talk to the commanders. We talk to the regional commanders, ask them how things are

going and they report data up to us about processes.

I will say that I don’t get involved at my level. And I am not sure

of the regional commanders would get involved at their level at an

individual issue like a case manager who denies an MRI. But I

would agree with General Weightman. We need to do a better job—

and we will do a better job of defining the roles and missions of

the case managers and platoon sergeants. And we have evolved

these processes so we don’t have cases like this come up.

General WEIGHTMAN. Sir, if I may add on to that. Under General

Kiley’s direction over the last 4 months, there’s been a survey conducted every couple of weeks looking at patient satisfaction with

their case managers and with their providers. And they take difVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:03 Mar 20, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00148 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\40852.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ferent samples of all the different regions. And that is anonymous.

It just goes up.

You know, the most reason one that was done at the end of January showed patient satisfaction with their case manager and with

their provider, their physician, to be over 90 percent. But that is

not what we have heard here. So are we looking at the wrong population? Or we are we making it too hard for them to tell us what

their concerns are?

We had the Army family action plan meeting here recently which

had very good representation from the Med Hold and the Med Hold

over patients and you know almost none of these issues were raised

there. So that is obviously a failure in our sampling technique to

get the feedback that we need.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, sir.

Mr. YARMUTH. My time has expired. Thank you.

Mr. TIERNEY. I think Mr. Duncan is out of the room briefly, so

Mr. Turner.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you Mr. Chairman. General Kiley, General

Weightman, obviously, it is very difficult in listening to the first

panel and then listening to the statements that you are making

concerning the current status of things that needs to be done.

There is a disconnect.

I hear the difficulty that the families and our service men and

women are having, and then I hear the—it is not happening now

or we will fix it, or a case manager doesn’t have that authority, but

yet a case manager apparently has gone against a doctor’s recommendation with respect to scheduling an MRI.

These things are very troubling. And my understanding from

both of you is both of you are saying with respect to Building 18,

that neither one of you were aware of the conditions of that building. Is that a correct characterization of what you said?

General KILEY. Yes, sir.

General WEIGHTMAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. TURNER. I guess my question comes to, well, how did you not

know? General Weightman, this is not that big of a facility. Did

you really testify that there are 371 outpatient rooms?

General WEIGHTMAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. TURNER. And General Kiley, in looking at your testimony,

you have, in spite of efforts to maintain Building 18, the building

will require extensive repairs if it is going to remain in service.

This is not a question of people weren’t satisfied with their accommodation. This is a situation where it doesn’t meet our standards.

General KILEY. I agree.

Mr. TURNER. What went wrong? How did you two not know that

we had something where we had people being housed not that just

that they were satisfied but it doesn’t meet our standards and yet

they were being housed there? General Kiley.

General KILEY. Sir, I can’t explain that. As has been pointed out,

I live across the street but I don’t do barracks inspections at Walter

Reed in my role as MEDCOM commander. I have subordinate commanders across MEDCOM that do those things if they think there

are problems and they are aware of them. I would certainly inspect

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any barracks if asked to come look at it, or we had a problem that

we couldn’t fix of one kind or another.

General WEIGHTMAN. During my initial orientation here, when I

came I walked through many barracks. I did not walk through

Building 18.

Mr. TURNER. General Kiley, this gets back to my question of systems. You said you do not do inspections. I don’t think anyone

would think that the system that you have in place as a manager

of an organization would be sufficient if your answer is that you

don’t do inspections, but yet you still did not know. There is something wrong with the organizational structure if we all have to

hear from the Washington Post versus that there are facilities—

and again, not just that they don’t meet the standards. It is not

like they thought that their accommodations weren’t acceptable.

They don’t meet our standards. But yet they were being housed

there and you two gentlemen who were given the responsibility and

being in charged—and again, as you said, General Kiley, Congress

can only appropriate funds, pass laws and the Government can

pass rules and regulations, but there are people, individuals who

have to implement this. So you can see why people would be very

disturbed.

General KILEY. Yes, sir. I can.

Mr. TURNER. General Kiley, I have one more question for you. I

believe you said you were not aware—you were not prepared for

the complexity of the injuries that these soldiers—or the complexities or injuries were not fully realized for these soldiers. What was

the plan then? What was your expectation?

General KILEY. As a commander at Walter Reed, we had done an

assessment when I took over in 2002 of casualty receiving processes that were coming from Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. When operations started in Iraq, we very quickly had

a much larger number of casualties coming in.

We had all the resources we asked for to increase our contract

nurses, physicians. We did some shifting of work at Walter Reed

out in the community for retirees and elected health care. And we

watched inpatient and outpatient work very closely.

A large number of the soldiers over time were healed and returned to the force or were medically boarded through the physical

disability system and then moved on to the VA if appropriate.

I think what has happened is over these last couple of years,

there is a subset of patients that are complex with more than just

one human system engaged in recovery, emotional, physical and

mental, organ systems if I can use that term as well as arms and

legs, PTSD and TBI. These get to go very complex patients. And

it takes a long time for them to heal. Some of the tools in the

science of medicine for TBI and some of the tools and science of

medicine for PTSD were just starting to develop to diagnose and

begin therapies for.

And this is in the face of a continuing stream of casualties. And

when we get busy at Walter Reed, we have an ability to move patients, for example, to Brook or down to Eisenhower. Occasionally,

we will ask Landstuhl regional Medical Center to hold patients for

a day or two.

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So we have had a system that has reacted. But over time, the

number of soldiers that have arrived here have challenged the system, challenged it with case workers, challenged it through the

MEB process and through the PEB process. And it is just a matter

of reinventing that simplifying it and getting on with business.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, General. Thank you, Mr. Turner, Mr.

Braley, do you have questions?

Mr. BRALEY. I do. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, with all due respect, General Kiley, when you make the comment that some of the

tools of the science of medicine for TBI and PTSD were just beginning to be established in the 2002, 2003 timeframe, that is hogwash. I have represented clients with TBI and PTSD disorders for

23 years. This science has been evolving throughout that entire period of time. But the basic medicine for recognizing, diagnosing and

treating patients who suffer from those illnesses and disease processes has been out there a long time. And what we are really talking about here today is the failure of planning, isn’t that true?

General KILEY. I do—I may have been misinterpreted in my comments. What we are seeing is the—I agree with you that TBI and

PTSD have been diagnosed and known. It is the level of these conditions. It is having two or three concussive events in combat were

you were actually not knocked out, you were not otherwise hurt,

you have the fourth concussive event and now you’re starting to

suffer from headaches. That is the kind of TBI and sensitivity of

diagnoses we have to reach. And we are beginning to understand

that there is a crossover potentially between PTSD and TBI. And

I have been up on the Hill in my role at Walter Reed to talk about

research and support of TBI.

Mr. BRALEY. But it is also part of a greater failure which is to

plan for the eventuality of casualties—like we have been talking

about here today—including amputations, which you have made a

special point of noting in your written comments deserves special

note, as an example, some of the initiatives that have been taken

here at Walter Reed. Do you remember that?

General KILEY. Yes, sir.

Mr. BRALEY. And, in fact, that is a scenario that is very, very

near and dear to my heart, because one of my constituents, Dennis

Clark of Clark and Associates Orthotics and Prosthetics was contacted in October 2003 and asked to provide short-term assistance

here at Walter Reed, and over the next 18 months, he made weekly

trips here at his own expense, staying in hotels in his own expense,

shipping prosthetic devices at his own expense over a period of 18

months at great personal sacrifice to himself, his partners and his

company.

And I guess the question I have is how do I go back to Dennis

and my neighbor, Don Bergen, who made those trips and say to

them that your sacrifice was rewarded by the level of care and the

planning that is being provided to veterans returning from Iraq

and Afghanistan today?

General KILEY. Sir, I was not aware that we had someone who

was coming here and providing services like that outside of a contracted service, because the amputee center at Walter Reed was

fully funded. It was part of the global war on terrorism budget line

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that we were given that was fully funded. And I was just not aware

of that.

But my comment about the amputee program and the success

was and the design of understanding that we were going to have

amputees and we were going to have to take care of them. And

their numbers are large. And it takes a long time for them to recover. And as we took care of them, we saw some new developments that have challenged us in terms of heterotopic bone formation, etc.

Mr. BRALEY. Ms. Bascetta, I have one followup question for you

about PTSD. One of the big concerns that I have is the impact of

PTSD on returning veterans like Joshua Amvig, who took his own

life in his family driveway in Grundy Center, Iowa. And his mother

was a client of mine. Congressman Leonard Boswell has a Joshua

Amvig Suicide Prevention Act that is currently pending in Congress to require a more detailed analysis of PTSD patients at risk

for being suicidal. And I was wondering if you think that would be

a helpful screening process that would be a supplement to the current PTSD rating that is supposed to be taking place at our veterans facilities?

Ms. BASCETTA. Yes, I think that would be very helpful. One of

the problems with PTSD is that it doesn’t necessarily manifest as

soon as the soldiers come home, that there could be significant

delays in their symptoms, and there could also be confusion or misdiagnosis of TBI and PTSD. And if there is misdiagnosis and the

PTSD goes untreated, it certainly worsens to the point where this

kind of tragedy could happen.

Mr. BRALEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would encourage all

members of the committee to sign on as original cosponsors of that

bill.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank the gentleman.

Ms. BASCETTA. May I also just add that Congressman Braley is

correct that there is a lot known about PTSD and TBI. In fact, VA

has had a National Center of Excellence on PTSD for many years.

They also have their four TBI Centers of Excellence and that, in

fact, is why the polytrauma centers for active duty service members

were put there because of VA’s specialized expertise.

I would readily admit that the science is still evolving. There is

still a lot that we don’t know yet. But this is one of the reasons

that we think it is so crucial for VA and DOD to work better together. They have started working together on things like clinical

guidelines, but much more needs to be done.

And in fact, those polytrauma centers, in response to those comments that General Kiley made, DOD had actually installed DOD

computers in those polytrauma centers so that VA physicians could

use the DOD computers to access their data. They were not

accessed from VA’s own computers. So it is hard to understand how

there could have been a systemwide access problem.

And we have been very frustrated about DOD raising the HIPAA

issue repeatedly. The House VA committee had many hearings on

the failure to reach a data sharing agreement. HIPAA was raised

in virtually all those hearings. And we believe that when there is

such a significant need for continuity of care with soldiers who are

going back and forth between the VA and the DOD, that certainly

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there must be a way to overcome this HIPAA barrier if it is indeed

a barrier.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you Ms. Bascetta. General Kiley, can we assume that you’re going to get on that issue and find a way to get

over that barrier?

General KILEY. Yes, sir. I will take that on. I’ll certainly ask. I’m

not in charge of it, but I’ll take care of it. That is a DOD decision,

not my decision.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TIERNEY. Yes, Mr. Shays.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I’m going to the burial of Sergeant

Richard Ford, who lost his life in Iraq in Arlington at 2, so I ask

to be excused.

Mr. TIERNEY. Yes, of course.

We still have about eight other Members that have the right to

ask questions here if they want. But again, I say if you have a

question that has already been answered, you may want to pass.

Otherwise, we are happy to have your comments. Ms. McCollum.

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am confused by

just followup on the HIPAA issue. It seems to me that could be

very easily cleared up by asking the patient if their information

can be shared between the DOD and the VA.

Mr. BRALEY. That is one way. That is an individualized way to

approach the problem. We think there might be broader ways to

allow access.

Ms. MCCOLLUM. But for right now, just telling a patient, you

know, in order to make sure you have seamless continuity of care,

is it OK that the VA and the Department of Defense share your

medical records? I think that could be a yes or no.

General KILEY. I don’t think there is a problem with that. The

issue that came up was every VA physician having access to every

soldier’s medical records, whether they had a requirement to care

for that soldier or not. That, again, I think this is a DOD decision.

I think that is what concerned the DOD, was that this was a kind

of a broad sweeping access to medical records that until the patients come to the VA, the VA doctors really don’t have a need to

know, when there is coordination——

Ms. MCCOLLUM. As a person in the private sector with health insurance, you sign broad agreements when you go in to have a radiology test done. So I think there is a way you folks can figure that

out.

General KILEY. Yes, ma’am.

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Could I ask a question about Building 18. What

has been the remediation for the mold in Building 18? I saw it

being painted over, so.

General WEIGHTMAN. Ma’am the remediation there was mold in

seven rooms in Building 18. Two rooms had mold on the walls and

five rooms had mold in the shower/bathtub area. For those that

was, had mold in the showers and bathtubs that was scrubbed off.

For those two rooms that had mold on the walls underneath the

wallpaper, the wall covering was stripped, mildewcide was applied,

and it was painted over after that.

The bigger problem on Building 18 is a moisture problem. And

that is why we keep getting mold back and forth. So the ultimate

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fix for Building 18, which has been started, is in the process of

being started, is to put a new roof so that we don’t have so much

moisture coming into the building as well as fixing some of the

leaking plumbing that we have that also allows moisture to come

in.

Ms. MCCOLLUM. So in that room by just—you are confident that

the mold has been eradicated in that room just by stripping top off

the wallpaper and not replacing carpeting, not replacing ceiling?

General WEIGHTMAN. No, ma’am. You know what I said is we

killed the mildew that was on the wall and repainted over it and

put another wall covering, but I am telling you that it will come

back until we fix the moisture problem.

Ms. MCCOLLUM. So you had it tested and you know it is just mildew. You tested the mold and you know it is just mildew?

General WEIGHTMAN. Ma’am, I cannot address that.

Ms. MCCOLLUM. I ask a question about the testimony, there was

submitted by Annette McLeod and her husband where they talk

about his process of going through of having his brain injury addressed. Quotes such as, he didn’t try hard enough because he was

under medication when the test was administered to see what his

cognitive disorder level might be. His paperwork, even noting the

fact that he had been in Title one, which is done primarily at the

grade school level in this country in reading and math, then being

labeled a special education class, then being labeled as retarded.

Who is doing this case management?

Do we have physicians and nurses doing this case management?

Because if we do, to have charts that would radically change like

this with health care professionals surprises me.

And what about those individuals who aren’t looking at their

charts and then, as I said, at the end of the day, sign off as to what

their disability is and how that can effect future benefits in the

VA? Could you tell me how this happens to an individual how they

go from admitting the fact that they had Title one to being labeled

as retarded by our governmental system?

General WEIGHTMAN. Ma’am, I totally agree with you that if the

soldier was good enough to come in the Army, then he was—he

should be treated as such. The case manager for this patient is a

registered nurse and activated reservist. And then he saw many

health care professionals from being social workers and psychologists and psychiatrists.

I do not have the particular details on who said what to whom.

And I actually don’t have their permission to talk about that case.

But I think it points out the problem that we raised earlier about

the handoff between the various—between the medical treatment

to the Medical Evaluation Board to the Physical Evaluation Board

who does make that ultimate determination on what degree of disability that he has.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you very much. Ms. Foxx, you asked questions earlier. Do you need another minute?

Ms. FOXX. Very quick question. The issue of HIPAA was mentioned, and it sounds to me like a lot of the problems that you all

have run into, for example, the sharing of information, it sounds

like it is above, again, your all pay grade. And sometimes it sounds

like it is coming directly back to Congress. I have only been there

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one term, but it sounds to me like some of the things that have

been created have caused problems are coming from us.

And what I want to ask you and encourage you to do is to make

sure that where the problems lie with the Congress, that those

issues will be brought back to us so that if we have an opportunity

to solve some problems we can help solve those problems. Do we

have your assurances on that?

General KILEY. Yes, ma’am. Thank you. The whole issue of Department of Defense and Veterans’ Affairs computer systems electronic medical records talking to each other is very important to

both groups. And I talk routinely with the VA and VA physicians

and both of us want our systems to talk together. But they don’t.

They are incompatible to date, but they are moving closer together.

You know the standard answer that it takes time and money, it

would make it a transparent electronic medical record for our soldiers. And we would like to see that.

The specific JPTA was, and the HIPAA issue associated with

that, was a very narrow issue. And I have it.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Davis.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Would the gentlelady yield? General

Kiley and General Weightman, you heard the testimony of the previous panel. And we have McLeods are right behind you. Do you

have anything you want to say to them who were caught up in

this?

General KILEY. I feel terrible for them. I know I have walked the

halls of Walter Reed daily for 2 years and talked to soldiers and

family members and I know this is very hard for them. And we

have to double our efforts, redouble our efforts to make these kind

of cases disappear in the system. And we have to simplify it. And

we have to give the benefit of the doubt to the soldier and his family instead of working through a bureaucracy.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. General Weightman, I guess you met

them at Burger King before.

General WEIGHTMAN. I would just like to apologize for not meeting their expectations, not only in the care provided but also in

having so many bureaucratic processes that just took your fortitude

to be an advocate for your husband that you shouldn’t have to do.

I promise we will do better.

Mr. TIERNEY. General Weightman, apparently Mrs. McLeod

didn’t have any difficulties with you and I think you should note

that. And General Kiley, you didn’t know that General Farmer was

not allowing Mrs. McLeod to make any statements——

General KILEY. No, sir. I didn’t know anything about that. No,

sir.

Mr. TIERNEY. I am going to yield just briefly to Mr. Braley who

wanted to clarify one thing under HIPAA.

Mr. BRALEY. General Kiley, it is my understanding that HIPAA

is designed to make sure that down stream providers of health

care, that is, those who are providing care later on in continuity

of care systems, have access to those records without the need for

a new and separate release. Is that your understanding of the

HIPAA requirements?

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General KILEY. To be honest with you, I don’t know about the

downstream access. It would make sense to me, sir, but I can’t give

you an accurate answer on that.

Mr. BRALEY. Ms. Bascetta, is that what you were referring to

earlier that this is really an obstacle that is not an obstacle.

Ms. BASCETTA. Yes. That is my understanding of the situation.

I am not a lawyer and HIPAA is very complicated and there could

be unintended consequences, but my understanding is that there is

a way to overcome this problem within the confines of the current

law.

General KILEY. Sir, if I may, Mr. Chairman, I agree that any

physician who has a requirement to care for a soldier in the VA

has total access that was not the issue that we ran into between

JPTA.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Cooper, you had questions earlier. You have 1

minute.

Mr. COOPER. One quick question. This is a busy, sometimes overcrowded hospital. We are involved in the global war on terror,

which has already lasted longer than most people anticipated. We

consistently underestimated the number of casualties. Do we have

any business shutting down this hospital?

General KILEY. Sir, I made my recommendations concerning the

future of Walter Reed during the deliberative process for the

BRAC. I personally recommended against closing Walter Reed. The

decisions were made by the Secretary. President approved it.

My tack was then twofold, to begin the process of merging Walter Reed with the National Naval Medical Center and begin—continue to articulate that the risk associated with that was of properly funding it. It is a very expensive decision to be able to take

all the health care that is provided here and move it.

Subsequent to those decisions and consistent with the discussions we have had all day today, I certainly think that we might

want to reopen the national discussion on this that maybe now is

not the right time, but that is really not my call. It is in the law.

And from my perspective, I would be happy to provide information

and observations about it. But, I am here to execute the law in that

regard.

Mr. COOPER. But you recommended against closing Walter Reed?

General KILEY. I did, sir. It was a deliberative process. Looking

at two major medical centers 8 miles apart, and there was a committee that worked through the discussions, the pros and cons and

the committee’s recommendation up the chain in the department

was to close it and realign it over at Bethesda. I didn’t agree with

that. But after the decisions were made, it doesn’t do any good to

continue to subvert that process.

Mr. COOPER. Shouldn’t we at least make sure the new facility is

better before we close this one?

General KILEY. Well, that is the challenge, because it is going to

cost a lot of money to open the new—to expand the Bethesda campus and build the new facility at Belvoir, which will capture all the

work that is going on here at Walter Reed. Yes, sir, that will take

a lot of money.

Mr. COOPER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank the gentleman.

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Mr. Hodes.

Mr. HODES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

General Kiley, I understand that you ran Walter Reed from 2002

to 2004. You are now the surgeon general of the Army.

General KILEY. Yes, sir.

Mr. HODES. And Major General Weightman, you ran Walter

Reed for 6 months, from August to recently, and you have been demoted, sent somewhere else——

General WEIGHTMAN. Sir, I have been relieved of command.

Mr. HODES. General Kiley, I want you to know that I think this

is a massive failure of competence in management and command.

And do you agree that the buck stops with you on these problems?

General KILEY. Yes, sir.

Mr. HODES. Now I want to know when the first time it was that

you heard about the kinds of problems we have heard about today?

When was the first time you heard about these kind of problems,

sir?

General KILEY. These specific problems I heard about when I

saw the articles in the Washington Post.

Mr. HODES. Now, sir, it is my understanding that former Congressman Bill Young and his wife approached you to talk about

problems with soldiers lying in urine on mattresses. Do you recall

that?

General KILEY. I recall that specific case. And I recall my conversation with Mrs. Young.

Mr. HODES. And she said that you had skirted these problems for

5 years. You understand she said that?

General KILEY. I understand she said that.

Mr. HODES. And in December of this year, you met with a fellow

named Mr. Robinson. Do you recall that?

General KILEY. I wouldn’t characterize it as meeting with him.

Mr. Robinson briefed the DOD congressionally mandated mental

health task force along with three or four other officers in his organization.

Mr. HODES. And you heard graphic testimony during that briefing from him consistent with what we have heard today from Mrs.

McLeod and Staff Sergeant Shannon, isn’t that correct?

General KILEY. He briefed us about his concerns about the welfare of soldiers across the whole system and Marines as part of his

role for his organization, some of which was focused at the Fort

Carson installation. But the issues that he talked about, and the

issues that Mrs. Young talked about, have been issues that we

have been challenged with and dealt and fixed on a case-by-case

basis since I took command 2002.

Mr. HODES. What did you do after the briefing on December

20th? Did you launch an investigation? Did you immediately go for

yourself to make your own personal investigation of the conditions

that Mr. Robinson was telling you about?

General KILEY. I did visit Fort Carson. I talked to both the installation command. And I had talked not only with—listened to

Mr. Robinson’s brief, but I also talked to him after that conference

about specific issues that I could talk to. We then, as part of the

task force mission out at Fort Carson, talked to soldiers and had

other discussions to analyze what was going on at Fort Carson.

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Mr. HODES. Is it still your testimony that it wasn’t until the

Washington Post published accounts that you knew of the failures

that had occurred at Walter Reed?

General KILEY. By failures at Walter Reed, if you are talking

about the individual soldiers’ stories in Building 18 at Walter Reed

in the timeframe that was described in the article, I was unaware

that those—that those specific cases were going on.

Mr. HODES. And nothing you had heard up until that point led

you to question whether or not you were overseeing a system that

was completely dysfunctional and wasn’t serving the soldiers?

General KILEY. Well, no, sir. I did not characterize my view of

either Walter Reed, the North Atlantic or my other regions as

being dysfunctional. We have always had concerns that the large

numbers of soldiers that we have had to manage across the installation create a challenge for the command.

The deployment of soldiers, the redeployment of soldiers, the deployment of PROFIS fillers creates challenges for the commanders

in terms of their own assets, some of very short nature. We have

had issues with the MEB and PEB process. We continue to work

those solutions.

Mr. HODES. And so that is why when you were asked about the

Post reports, you essentially said that it is not a systemwide problem, our health care system is treating our soldiers well.

General KILEY. Well, I think our health care system in terms of

the delivery of medicine across U.S. Army medical command and

here at Walter Reed is outstanding. As I said earlier in my paper

in my presentation, the bureaucracy complexity and adversarial

nature of the MEB-PEB process is something that we need to take

on and fix.

Mr. HODES. Sir, if we find, this Congressman finds that your failure to acknowledge earlier the problems that have existed are a serious problem, how then can we take what you say about your proposed fixes and how do we know that is going to happen?

General KILEY. I guess I am trying not to say that I am not accountable because I am accountable. And I am trying to say that

we have known that these soldiers are injured, they are emotionally and physically vulnerable, that they need help and health care,

that they need a system that cares for them continuously right into

their either retirement or return to duty. It happens all over America. And not just at Walter Reed. I command by commanding

through my commanders entrusting them to execute the mission

right down to the hospital commanders. And I give them the resources. And then we do inspect them and check them.

I did not personally inspect some of the issues at Walter Reed.

I will redouble my efforts on this. I am not denying that we don’t

have challenges. We had challenges when I was the commander

here. We had stories were I talked walked up to a lieutenant. I

said, do you have any money? He said I have it in my wallet. I said

where is your wallet? He said it is in my pants. I said where are

your pants? He said I guess they are in Iraq.

We would walk up to a young spouse with a baby in her arms

and her husband is lying there paralyzed from the waist down from

an accident. Tears your heart. And you look to the system. It

doesn’t necessarily give you a good sense that we are going to be

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able to take care of this family as well as we have come to expect

in America and in our soldiers and their families. And some of

these things I can effect at my level as a hospital commander or

as a MEDCOM commander. I can give resources for case managers

and doctors and BEDLOs. Some of these other things I have to

work with larger and Army and DOD to get some of this bureaucracy out of the way.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you gentleman, Mr. Welch.

Mr. WELCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There was a report recently in the Army Times that soldiers here have been intimidated

basically and discouraged from speaking directly to the media

about their conditions.

General Kiley, do you have any knowledge as to whether this is

true?

General KILEY. Sir, I spoke to the brigade commander after this

article was released and asked you know——

Mr. WELCH. That being whom?

General KILEY. Colonel Hamilton. And asked what happened.

And the article had said as I remember the article now because I

had a whole series of points I wanted to validate. I asked were all

the soldiers going to have to get up at 6 o’clock to have a room inspection at 7? He said no, that is not going to happen.

He had asked the soldiers that if they had issues they needed to

know that the chain of command was open and ready to take

those—work those.

I can’t remember all the other issues in the article right now.

But it was my sense in talking to the commander that some of the

fears or concerns or issues about the soldiers that were addressed

at the formation by the commander that you know he was not in

any way threatening them or saying other than, look, we are here

to help you and get this thing fixed. But there was not——

Mr. WELCH. If I understood you correctly, you just said that the

soldiers were told to take their complaints through the chain of

command.

General KILEY. Well, I don’t want to put words in Colonel Hamilton’s mouth and the conversation was very short. I was led to the

impression that what Colonel Hamilton had told the soldiers in the

formation was that they could come to him, that they can bring

their complaints to him.

I don’t want to give the impression that meant that they had to

or that was their only option. We have IGs. We have chaplains. We

have a whole system for——

Mr. WELCH. Obviously, it is important for the soldiers to have

confidence that they will be heard. And I am not certain you have

clarity. At least, I am not clear from your own answers whether

you have confidence that if a soldier wants to speak out directly

perhaps to a reporter about the circumstances of his care, that is

acceptable as far as you are concerned or not.

General KILEY. I think it is very acceptable. You know, I wear

this uniform in support of the Constitution and freedom of press.

And I have never told soldiers that they can’t talk to the press

and——

Mr. WELCH. Can you clarify that with—I forget the name of——

General KILEY. Colonel Hamilton?

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Mr. WELCH. With Colonel Hamilton.

General KILEY. I don’t want to give incorrect information here.

But it is my impression that he did not put any kind of a proscription on soldiers. He did not threaten reprisal or retribution in any

way with his discussion with soldiers.

Mr. WELCH. Were you consulted about who would take command

of this facility after General Weightman was relieved of the command?

General KILEY. No, sir, I was not—first, I was not consulted because I was told not to take the command until we could find someone and then I was informed that General Schoomaker would replace General Weightman.

Mr. WELCH. Is it on the basis of your experience both your 2

years of command here and your subsequent experience and other

responsibilities that the conditions that have been reported and described have been in existence for over 6 months?

General KILEY. Well, I would say that there are two 15–6 investigations going on at Walter Reed right now, one looking my chain

of command issues specifically health and safety, and who in the

chain of command knew what, when they knew it. And there is another 15–6 looking at the clinical process of medical boards, MEB,

PEB process. I can’t say right now, whether this was a short-term

or long-term problem, I think the number of soldiers that were

here would lead you to believe that General Weightman was working through these solutions.

Mr. WELCH. So if I understand your testimony, you were here for

2 years, then General Farmer, then General Weightman. The information you have to date is that General Weightman, in fact, was

trying to work through these problems. He has been fired. Is that

an appropriate response to the situation that has been presented

to us?

General KILEY. Sir, that is a decision for the civilian leadership

of the Department of the Army of the Department of Defense.

Mr. WELCH. I guess it is—I am sorry, the rank of——

General KILEY. Major General, sir.

Mr. WELCH. Hamilton.

General KILEY. Colonel.

Mr. WELCH. Colonel Hamilton is here. He is not sworn in, Mr.

Chairman, but he might be able to clarify the question about what

was told to these soldiers about whether they could or couldn’t

speak, or whether there was any impression that the soldiers recently could have sustained that they were discouraged from speaking directly to the press.

Mr. TIERNEY. We can contemplate swearing him in with the next

panel for that one question if you need to, but otherwise maybe the

next panel can address that question.

Mr. WELCH. Thank you. I yield the balance of my time.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you very much. Ms. Norton.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a question about

the twin pressures here at Walter Reed, as the crown jewel as it

has always been called, where you send the most injured soldiers

always and certainly from Iraq and Afghanistan. The BRAC pressure is clear what it does is send a signal to everybody go look for

another job because we think it is going to close down.

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If I may say so, I think Congress would be insane to pump $2 or $3 billion into building a new hospital in the middle of a war.

And I don’t expect we will come up with those funds. But I do

think that is a signal that sends out on top of the BRAC pressure

which says scatter get a job if you can somewhere else, there was

the privatization pressure where you Mr. Kiley and Mr.

Weightman have privatized all of the base operations, except as I

understand it, for medical care.

Now, of course, those would be the very base operations that Mr.

Kiley, General Kiley, would have to do with the upkeep you have

testified about, of $400 million in renovations, $269,000 in renovations, lots of money. But of course, what difference does that make

if there is not staff on board to keep the facility up?

These employees came to see me, because I represent the hospital here. Many of them don’t even live here. Your own publication, by the way, said that there were 350 employees. I don’t know

if all those positions were filled, but 350 employees, and that is exactly what the representatives of the employees told me.

These were workers who have had competed for their own jobs

and had won the competition and the Army overturned the competition, if I may say so, the notion that therefore the Congress

interfered and that must have elongated the process. On the contrary, some of them thought they might prevail because, in fact, we

got an amendment through the House that would have restored the

status quo and it just did not get through the Senate.

My question goes to the wisdom of privatizing everything except

the clinical and medical matters in the middle of a war, especially

since you, Mr. Kiley, in the first year where privatization started

and then when you were at MEDCOM and they asked you for more

staff, denied more staff, even as the staff was dwindling. In that

same memo from Colonel Spencer, you are both put on notice due

to the uncertainty associated—well, first of all, they talked about

critical issues, and I am here quoting retaining skilled clinical personnel. See that scares me. Skilled clinical personnel for the hospital and diverse professionals for the garrison.

Those are the people who are to be privatized who just thinned

out and went wherever they could find a job. Then it says, while

confronted with increased difficulties in hiring—because how who

in hell—excuse me—who, in fact, would want to be hired in the

middle of that? Due to the uncertainty associated with this issue,

Walter Reed continues to lose other highly qualified personnel.

Could I ask you whether you believe that it would have been better not to privatize the entire garrison work force when the facility

was already undergoing pressures from BRAC and faced with those

uncertainties? When you surely would have known it would scatter

that work force, that experienced work force, and that your own

workers had won the competition for, in fact, keeping this facility

up, including Building 18? Would it not have been better in light

of all the uncertainty simply to go with the work force you have?

Why did you seek to privatize the work force in light of the BRAC

uncertainty and add to that with the uncertainty that always attends privatization?

General KILEY. First, I would like to say that the requests of

Colonel Garibaldi through General Weightman, I approved those at

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MEDCOM and we resourced those requirements for him. He was

unable to execute them, which was the issue. I gave him the money

he needed. But you have already articulated the challenge. You

identified the issue when you are not going to have a job much

longer, why should you hire one?

Ms. NORTON. Therefore, why should you privatize? Which started

on your watch, General Kiley?

General KILEY. Actually it started, as I understand it, in 2000,

when it was identified as one of the privatization efforts under A–

76. And once that installation was identified to the Army as a

process——

Ms. NORTON. I am trying to get an answer to this because I know

they want to move on. Would it have been the better side of wisdom not to privatize everything here except the clinical and medical work force, and therefore add to the stability or the instability

of that inevitably comes with BRAC?

General KILEY. It did increase the instability.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you. General Weightman.

General WEIGHTMAN. Absolutely between BRAC and A–76 it was

two huge impacts on our civilian work force, which is two thirds

of our work force here at Walter Reed.

Mr. TIERNEY. I want to thank all of you but before I let you go,

General Kiley, in one of your written submissions, you indicated

that you were having people look into these matters both the physical condition of the buildings but also the MEB, PEB situation and

that you would report back to us. We would like to schedule a hearing for the purpose of this entire discussion, those matters in particular. Is 30 days’ time, 45 days?

General KILEY. 45 days I can certainly give you more in 45 than

in 30. But the team I have sent out to those facilities should be

done within the next 2 weeks. The process of looking at the MEB

the term we use, lean six sigma concept, and we put personnel experienced in that on to the process here at Walter Reed is going

to take longer than 45 days. But I can give you an interim report

at that time.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. I want to thank all of our witnesses for

the testimony here today and we appreciate your being here and

being willing to answer all the questions and we will let you go at

at this time. Thank you.

If we could ask our members of the third panel to accept their

invitation to come to panel please.

Mr. BRALEY. Mr. Chairman point of order. While the third panel

is being seated, can you clarify the point made in the committee

memorandum about the request for information that was made on

behalf of yourself and the ranking member of the subcommittee for

documents related to the inqiry today and whether we received any

response to that.

Mr. TIERNEY. I can say that was question No. 1 coming up in the

next panel. We have not yet received that documentation. We are

going to ask the next witnesses on this panel to ensure us that

they would be coming as well as additional documents that are

going to be requested.

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Thank you, gentlemen. We will have a very brief introduction,

and I will allow you gentlemen to introduce yourselves as you

speak.

General Schoomaker, you are sort of a late entry here; and we

appreciate your being willing to come testify today.

General Cody, we appreciate your appearance, also. Mr. Geren is

the Under Secretary you have asked to sit on this panel. But I understand there is no opening statement that you are providing, and

I think our questions will probably be directed to the generals.

Do you have an opening statement, General?

STATEMENTS OF GENERAL PETER SCHOOMAKER, CHIEF OF

STAFF OF THE ARMY; AND GENERAL RICHARD A. CODY,

ARMY VICE CHIEF OF STAFF

STATEMENT OF GENERAL PETER SCHOOMAKER

General SCHOOMAKER. Sir, only to say that I appreciate your

agreeing to allow me to appear today.

I am the senior uniformed officer in the Army. You know, the

buck stops with me when it comes to uniform. And General Cody

is the point man in the Army for what we are doing here, and I

wanted to be here to make sure that we understood, you know,

where the responsibility and accountability lived. Thank you.

Mr. TIERNEY. Is that your entire statement?

General SCHOOMAKER. It is.

Mr. TIERNEY. General Cody.

STATEMENT OF GENERAL RICHARD A. CODY

General CODY. Thank you, Chairman, Congressman Shays and

distinguished members of this committee. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the outpatient care of our Nation’s wounded warriors here at Walter Reed Medical Center and as well as throughout our Army.

Every leader in our force is committed to ensuring the Army

healthcare for American soldiers is the best this Nation can provide. From the battlefield through every soldier’s return home, our

priority is the lifelong, expedient delivery of compassionate, comprehensive, world-class medical care.

I am here today as the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, but I am

also here as a simple soldier who spent over 34 years serving and

leading our men and women in uniform through peace and in war,

through health, injury and the ultimate sacrifice that our soldiers

are willing to make on behalf of this great Nation.

Like many of our general officers and senior noncommissioned officers, I am the father of two sons who are soldiers, each of whom

have served multiple tours in combat. I am the uncle of two nephews who have also served in harm’s way. And I can tell you I have

never been prouder than I am today to serve with our incredible

soldiers who motivate me every day and who remain the focus of

everything we do in our Army.

As Americans, we treasure the members of our all-volunteer

force who have raised their right hand and said, America, in your

time of need, send me; I will defend you. We all understand that

in return for their service and sacrifice, especially in a time of war

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and demanding operational tempo, we owe these soldiers the quality of care that is at least equal to the quality of service they have

provided this Nation.

I frequently visit Army medical facilities around the world; and

in the last year I have met with soldiers, staff and patients in Iraq,

Afghanistan, at Landstuhl in Germany, at installations across the

United States and, at every opportunity, here at Walter Reed and

Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas. Without exception, the people I encounter inevitably remind me that the United States is

truly a special Nation blessed with incredible sons and daughters

who are willing to serve and offer all of themselves in our defense.

In them I have witnessed unparalleled strength, resilience, generosity; and I am humbled by their bravery.

Even if all our facilities were the best in the world and every

process and policy were streamlined perfectly, our soldiers and

families still deserve better. And, without a doubt, they deserve

better than what we have provided.

Today, we have 248,000 soldiers in more than 80 countries

around the world for the Army. When injured or wounded, every

one of these soldiers begins a journey through our medical treatment facilities with top-notch care delivered by Army medics, Army

surgeons, nurses and civilians in forward-operating facilities.

There, soldiers receive extraordinary acute care that has drastically

lowered our died-of-wounds rate in this war and is readily cited as

being without peer.

But it is after that incredible life-saving work has been done and

the recovery process begins that our wounded soldiers are subjected

to a complex medical and disability evaluation process that can be

difficult to negotiate and manage. Due to a patchwork of regulations, policies and rules, many of which have not been updated in

nearly 50 years and have been stressed by 5 years of this war, soldiers and staff alike are faced with the confusing and frequently

demoralizing task of sifting through too much information and too

many interdependent decisions and bureaucracy.

Our counselors and case managers are overworked, and they do

not receive enough training. We do not adequately communicate

necessary information. Our administrative processes are needlessly

cumbersome and, quite frankly, take too long. Our medical holding

units are not manned to the proper level, and we do not assign

leaders who can ensure proper accountability, proper discipline and

well-being of our wounded soldiers and their health, welfare and

morale. And our facilities are not maintained to the standards that

we know is right.

Many of these issues we are fixing now and we can repair ourselves and we are working aggressively to do so. Others will require your support and assistance to resolve.

In conjunction with the Office of the Secretary of Defense we will

work to identify and recommend to Congress changes in law or

statutes that may be required to ensure our wounded warriors and

their families receive the fair compensation commensurate with

their service and sacrifice. I am confident that, with the support of

the American people, passion and dedication of veterans who have

come before us, the resolve of this Congress and our administration

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and the strengthened commitment of the U.S. Army, we are going

to make this right.

Addressing our shortfalls and implementing changes that will

drastically improve the health and well-being of our soldiers and

families for the next generation is a matter of urgency. Now is the

time for our Nation and for our Army to recommit and reinvest in

the facilities, compensation and the programs our wounded warriors deserve.

During my visits with our wounded warriors at our medical facilities throughout the world, what has struck me most is the humble and resilient spirit of our soldiers and their families. They ask

very little in return for all that they have given. They ask not to

be forgotten, they ask that their families be cared for and that we

will do all we can to support their brothers and sisters in arms and

that they tell and we tell their story to the American people. For

that, these soldiers deserve the preservation of their dignity, their

pride in being soldiers and the knowledge that their leaders and

their country know that there is no compensation, no awards, no

words that can measure their and their family’s gift to this Nation

and to our Army.

We will do what is right for our soldiers and their families. They

can be assured that the Army leadership is committed and dedicated to ensuring that their quality of life and the quality of their

medical care is equal to the quality of their service and their great

sacrifice.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I look forward to your questions.

Mr. TIERNEY. I thank you. I thank all you have on the panel.

I forgot to swear you all in originally.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you to all the witnesses. You are recorded

as answering in the affirmative.

General, your statement is well taken. But I have to tell you, the

first thing that pops into my mind is, where have you been? Where

has all the brass been on this?

All we have heard and read about earlier today, clearly, this

can’t all be pushed down at the lower level. Clearly, this is not

some junior officer’s responsibility that nobody else has to claim

anything for.

I think one of the earlier witnesses on the first panel said this

well, you need to have some supervision here. People have to be responsible. You don’t just send them off to do that.

And these issues, from what I can see, have gone back to General

Kiley’s day, General Farmer’s day and General Weightman. What

is it that General Weightman did that was so different from what

General Farmer or General Kiley did? Will one of you tell me why

he got the axe and why the others walk on the earth today? You

know, why are they still in uniform and still going on?

I don’t see any difference between the conditions, 125-to–1 ratio

and the difficulties people were having getting around to the different systems. Can you tell me why it is that one sort of is being

transferred out and the others are not even recognizing that the

problem existed, but we know it existed all this time?

General SCHOOMAKER. General Weightman was relieved of his

command by the Secretary of the Army. I supported that decision.

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The Secretary of the Army felt he had lost trust and confidence in

General Weightman.

Mr. TIERNEY. Let me interrupt you. He lost trust and confidence

because he is the one who reduced it from 125 to 1 to 25 to 1? You

lost trust and confidence because he is the one who put more attention into the PTSD issue?

General SCHOOMAKER. Sir, I think the issue was the Building 18

issue and the fact that a Building 18 existed when nobody knew

that it had existed.

We are out here continuously. We are across the Army continuously with these soldiers and their families continuously, get nothing but the most outstanding feedback from the way that they are

treated and the medical care that they receive here.

Mr. TIERNEY. So we assume Building 18’s conditions arose only

in August 2006? It didn’t exist before?

General SCHOOMAKER. No, it is very clear that it existed before.

What I am trying to say is the fact that, you know, nobody knew

of a Building 18 until it arises this way. Certainly begs the question of why. We didn’t know it. And of course, you know, I mean,

I will tell you, I was extraordinarily angry and embarrassed by the

fact that we would have a Building 18.

Mr. TIERNEY. I would think that would be the case, sir.

But we go beyond the bricks and mortar issue which I think is

going to be resolved without as much difficulty as the other issue

of what has been happening in terms of their care. The hand-offs

and the going through the process there, that has been all the way

back to 2004, 2005.

General SCHOOMAKER. Medical care here——

Mr. TIERNEY [continuing]. The whole idea of the post-medical

care.

General SCHOOMAKER. Outpatient care is a problem, a challenge

that was anticipated. I would have told you before these hearings,

based upon the feedback that we had gotten at the level that we

are, that this would have been a bright spot in our history in terms

of how soldiers have been cared for.

Now, you know, my father was a World War II, Korean War and

Vietnam veteran. I was commissioned 38 years ago. I have a brother who is now in command of Walter Reed who is a major general.

I have a daughter and a son-in-law that are on their way to combat. This is not something about people don’t care, and I am not

going to sit here and have everybody tell me we don’t care.

Mr. TIERNEY. We haven’t said anything about people not caring.

We will put that red herring aside, and if I can calm you down and

get you back to the issue here, this——

General SCHOOMAKER. This isn’t a red herring.

Mr. TIERNEY. Sir, nobody said anything about not caring. The

question was and continues to be, if these situations have been occurring since 2004, 2005, 2006, why weren’t they resolved and why

weren’t they addressed?

General SCHOOMAKER. That is a great question. And the issue is,

is you asked me the question of why General Weightman was relieved by the Secretary of the Army. It is because these issues

hadn’t been surfaced, and General Weightman was in a position of

accountability and responsibility. And the Secretary of the Army

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didn’t have trust and confidence in him and relieved him, and I

supported that.

Mr. TIERNEY. Is your testimony, sir, then, all of the reports that

Mr. Waxman read earlier, the several GAO reports, the newspapers going back to salon.com articles, the Inspector General’s reports going back several years now that all speak to these issues

which were addressed today, none of them came to the attention

of anybody higher than General Weightman?

General SCHOOMAKER. That I cannot speak to. I would certainly

say they didn’t come to my attention.

Mr. TIERNEY. General Cody.

General CODY. I have been the Vice Chief since 2004. Prior to

that, I was the Operation Officer of the Army. And so I can’t speak

before that because I was busy getting the Army ready for the war

back in 2002. But when I became the Vice Chief in charge mostly

of the day-to-day operations for the Chief of Staff of the Army and

the Secretary of the Army and the Under Secretary of the Army,

occasionally we would get reports about medical hold, occasionally

we would get reports about process. In each case, the Secretary of

the Army or the Surgeon General of the Army had sent teams out

to work through the process.

I am not aware of the reports that I heard Chairman Waxman

talk about. I have not read those reports. But we did know that the

process for the MEB and the PEB are very, very complex. I am now

very well aware of it. I have studied it now for the last 2 weeks.

But, before that, I have come to this hospital several times since

2002 when this war began and did not know of Building 18. That

is not an excuse, just didn’t know it was there. Because I spent

most of my time on ward 57, ward 58 and the neurosurgeon wards

and stuff like that. Each time I heard about these problems they

were being addressed and trying to take care of it.

I think that the size and scope—let me just say one thing. From

2002 until now, we were handling about 6,000 MEB and PEBs in

the Army. About 2004 until now, it rose up to 11,000 a year, and

that has been a problem, and we have to address it. But I was not

aware of the size and scope of this issue.

Mr. TIERNEY. Who in your chain of command would you have expected would have been aware of those reports Mr. Waxman talked

about?

General CODY. Certainly the Surgeon General and certainly the

commander of our region, not just this region but our other regions.

Mr. TIERNEY. Would it have been fair to suspect that they would

have done something about it, at least looked at the systemic and

complex issues and made recommendations to you?

General CODY. Well, they would have made recommendations to

the Secretary of the Army on some of these. We did note—we did—

in 2005 and 2006, I am aware that the Department of the Army

Inspector General was ordered by the Secretary of the Army to go

and look the MEB and the PEB process. And their latest report

was just briefed out to me—excuse me—today.

Mr. TIERNEY. We have all of these reports, and we have, apparently, nothing happening on the ground here that is really impacting the patients yet and their families on that. And I think that

is what upsets people and what surprises them on that.

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You know, we have had a surge. Everybody knows that we apparently didn’t expect or certainly our civilian leaders didn’t expect

they were going to have that kind of casualties in the situation.

That has increased and, at the same time, we have a decrease in

personnel here.

My time is pretty much up, so I am going to pass it on and hope

somebody else will get into that.

As we are ramping up the number of people here for service, we

are having all kind of difficulty with the personnel. I will also leave

it to somebody else to ask, what do we do in terms of planning for

what may occur with an additional 25,000 troops going into combat?

With that, I will leave it to Mr. Davis.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you very much.

I am not sure where to start here. But, General Schoomaker, if

you think this is about Building 18, we have missed the point here.

This is about a far more systemic problem.

This committee, as Mr. Waxman noted and a number of GAO reports, published reports, our hearings, guardsmen not being paid in

the field appropriately, computers that don’t talk to each other. It

is a systemic problem. And Building 18 was the visual that was

just kind of waiting to happen. It encapsulates all the other problems.

But the witnesses today, the testimony was less about Building

18 than it was they couldn’t get proper medical attention. They

would come back from the war, they are injured, and nobody is

there to take care of them. They have to navigate a maze of regulations and procedures and paperwork that a lawyer couldn’t navigate. You know, so you are not going to be able to Scotch tape this

over, which we have tried to do, and Band-Aid it. It takes a systemic problem.

We have had wave after wave of people come before our committee over the last 4 years saying they are going to fix it. I have here

the last two Army medical holdover operations reports; and we always get, well, we are going to do better. But we always seem to

find a new manifestation for these systemic problems. We saw it

in the pay, we saw it in the collection, we saw it in the people falling through.

What makes this round of promises any different? How are you

going to be more successful at integrating all of these different

Army command responsibilities and processes so they are seamless

and provide a better standard of care? What makes this different

from what we have heard before each time we get an embarrassing

situation?

General SCHOOMAKER. First of all, let me be very clear. My statement was not intended to say this is about Building 18. There is

no question that this is bigger than that. It was about when this

thing, you know, first came to our attention. And clearly that is

what it is, and it clearly has become a metaphor for a much bigger

problem.

But I believe, as the Vice Chief has said, there is a Department

of the Army Inspector General report that he has read now that

it has taken time to do. There is a very detailed action plan that

has being put together under his purview that we fully intend to

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support. I believe that there is a great deal of desire and emphasis

to make this happen because it has to happen, sir. It is the right

thing to do.

I told you I couldn’t be madder and I couldn’t be more embarrassed and ashamed of the kinds of things that have turned up, because, clearly, it is not what my impression would have been based

upon the feedback that I have gotten as I have talked to soldiers

and their families.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. I mean, these are heroes, these people

that are coming back here.

General SCHOOMAKER. Absolutely.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. They put their lives, their families at

stake, and some of them will never be the same, and they are languishing. And they are not nuisances or things that we have to

check off, but they have been treated this way.

I will tell you, I was a Reserve officer, retired first lieutenant. I

never got any higher. But I think it is time the generals at the very

top be held accountable, because that is where the systems come

from. You can’t even have a commanding general here be able to

patch together all of the different systems that are dysfunctional

within the Department of Defense and the Veterans Administration. So I think we may be looking at the wrong scapegoats. This

is a far bigger problem that we failed to look at.

I just want to know, what are we doing systematically to make

these——

General CODY. Let me take that on, Congressman.

First off, we are taking accountability across the board. Since

this problem was highlighted, one of the issues I found very, very

clearly when I went and looked through, it wasn’t just Building 18.

It dealt with how we treated and took care of the health, welfare

and morale of these soldiers in a very vulnerable transitional piece,

having served our country so well.

So I clearly understood that we didn’t have the right structure

here at Walter Reed. So we have changed it immediately.

We have taken the Medical Service Corps out of taking care of

our medical hold and medical holdover. I selected a colonel, a combat veteran, as well as a commandant sergeant major. These are

combat arms soldiers.

We have taken and put about 27 new E7s that are coming in to

fix that structure, because the rooms weren’t being inspected. That

is not a big issue, but the appointments were not being taken care

of. There was no followup to make sure they were on the right

meds, there was no followup in what type of training, there was

no followup in getting back to their units and checking with them.

That piece is being fixed immediately.

The systems you are talking about is the Medical Evaluation

Board TT and that does not talk to the PD caps, which is the back

side of the Physical Evaluation Board. We are trying to get that

fixed now.

In between that is the liaison officers. These liaison officers are

the ones who take the soldiers from the MEB process and hand

them and work them through the Physical Evaluation Board processes. Clearly, we don’t have enough. The training is not good

enough, and there was no quality control to see if certain liaison

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officers were adequately trained and taking care of the soldiers all

the way through the process. We are now fixing that as part of the

action plan.

And it is not just the production timeline. It is the quality control

timeline. And we have raised the rank structure of liaison officers.

That, right now, is our immediate work, but there is work to be

done making these two systems talk to each other.

On a larger scale, when you talk about Walter Reed in particular, this is not a spike that we are in. This is a global war. This

war has gone on now for 5 years. And when the decision was made

I believe to look at Walter Reed for BRAC and to look at the A–

76 process in a crown jewel that is going to support our wounded

warriors all during this war, I think we need to take a look and

then readdress whether we sanctuary Walter Reed during this long

war.

We need to have to ask the hard questions. Because, clearly,

when you take a look at a hospital that has been put on the BRAC

list and you are trying to get the best people to come here to work

and they know in 3 years that this place will close down and they

are not sure whether they will be afforded the opportunity to move

to the new Walter Reed national military center eight miles away,

that causes some issues. The A–76 process that I heard discussed,

we have to ask ourselves the question, is that the right thing to

do at a hospital right now that is supporting this war?

So, from a larger scale, these are the things that the two-star

general and the three-star general were having to wrestle with.

And these are both laws. I am not complaining about them. But

when those things were discussed, everybody thought that this war

was going to ramp down in 2005 and 2006. And the Chief and I

have said for a long time, this is not a spike. This is a global war

on terrorism, and we are going to be at this level for some time.

So I think we have to have a national discussion about that.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Mr. Waxman.

Mr. WAXMAN. General Schoomaker, last Friday, the Secretary of

the Army, Francis Harvey, was fired and, preceding him, General

Weightman was fired. Now, the Secretary of the Army looked to

you as his Chief of Staff to try to understand what was going on,

to try to give him the information to make sure he knew what he

had to know to make the system work.

Now, the chairman asked you about some of these reports. There

was in February 2005 an article in Salon magazine describing appalling conditions and shocking patterns of neglect in ward 54,

Walter Reed’s inpatient psychiatric ward. Were you aware of that?

General SCHOOMAKER. I was not. I have been in that ward, and

I have visited that ward.

Mr. WAXMAN. There was another report in 2006 that warned the

soldiers with traumatic brain injuries were not being screened,

identified or treated and others were being misdiagnosed, forced

away for treatment or called liars. Did you know about that report?

General SCHOOMAKER. I did not know about the report, but I certainly know and we have been very concerned and working on

traumatic brain injury and PTSD.

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Mr. WAXMAN. In 2005, RAND issued a report finding that the

military disability system is unduly complex and confuses veterans

and policymakers alike. Were you aware of this report?

General SCHOOMAKER. I was not aware of the report, but I do

agree with the synopsis or the conclusion that it states.

Mr. WAXMAN. Over the past 2 years, the Government Accountability Office has issued a number of reports. In January 2005,

they found inadequate collaboration between the Pentagon and VA

to expedite vocational rehabilitation services for seriously injured

service members; and in February they reported on gaps in pay

and benefits that create financial hardships for injured Army National Guard and Reserve soldiers. Did you know about the GAO

reports?

General SCHOOMAKER. The GAO reports I probably was aware of

but have not read, but I have visited these VA centers. I was recently at one down in Florida near Tampa that is a polytrauma

center, have observed it, have been watching the good work that

has taken place to make the transmission right in places like Tripler, where they are actually converting a wing to the VA to walk

them across, and so I think these things are known and have been

being worked on.

Mr. WAXMAN. You went to the passive use of the English language. What were known and were being worked on?

General SCHOOMAKER. Are known and are being worked on. I am

talking about——

Mr. WAXMAN. There is a chain of command in the military.

General SCHOOMAKER. That is correct.

Mr. WAXMAN. The Secretary of the Army, Francis Harvey, would

have looked to you to get the information. Who do you look to to

get the information?

General SCHOOMAKER. In medical situations, I look to the Surgeon General.

Mr. WAXMAN. Who is the Surgeon General?

General SCHOOMAKER. My purview is over the entire Army.

Mr. WAXMAN. Who is the Surgeon General?

General SCHOOMAKER. General Kiley, sir.

Mr. WAXMAN. General Kiley just told us—and even though he

was in Walter Reed, no one told him about some of the things that

were happening in Building 18. Who was supposed to report these

things to him?

General SCHOOMAKER. The Commander of Walter Reed, who is

responsible.

Mr. WAXMAN. And the Commander, who was the Commander of

Walter Reed?

General SCHOOMAKER. General Weightman was the Commander

of Walter Reed.

Mr. WAXMAN. General Weightman. But he was only Commander

for a short period of time.

General SCHOOMAKER. He had been Commander since of summer

of 2006. General Farmer before him was retired. The Commander

before him was General Kiley.

Mr. WAXMAN. I guess I share the concerns that Congressman

Davis expressed. We have all these reports, we have all these

alarm bells going off in articles from popular magazines or informaVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:03 Mar 20, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00171 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\40852.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tion sources like Salon to GAO reports, and the information doesn’t

seem to get up the line of command.

General Cody, you gave us an excellent statement, but how much

of those problems that you have outlined for us were you aware of

before the Washington Post report, before all of this became such

a focus of attention? You personally.

General CODY. Sir, I was aware of in—because of my time as the

G–3 of the Army coming to this hospital and visiting soldiers, I was

aware of the severely wounded warrior problem, and I was concerned about it. And we set up what you know now as the Army

Wounded Warrior Program back in 2004, early 2004, because we

were concerned with the numbers of injuries, amputations and

traumatic brain injuries. We were concerned that, if we medically

retired a severely wounded soldier, we wanted to make sure that

the Army stayed with that soldier through that whole process.

Mr. WAXMAN. That was 2004. This is now 2007. Today, the

Washington Post says, it is not just Walter Reed. They gave very

heartbreaking stories about broken wheelchairs at a California VA

hospital, rooms overflowing with trash and swarming with fruit

flies in San Diego Naval Medical Center, mold, peeling paint, staff

shortages in Knoxville, KY.

I guess my question—and my time is up—is the same question

that Congressman Davis asked you. If you didn’t know and you

didn’t do, why are we going to believe that it is going to get done

in the future? Why should we feel confident because a couple of

heads have rolled that the job is going to get done, not just at Walter Reed but in this whole system?

General CODY. As I said, we started the Army Wounded Warrior

Program because we knew that part was going to be the piece that

we were most concerned about. And that program has been run

now for 2, 21⁄2 to 3 years, and it is working very well.

The MEB and PEB process and the extent of what has happened

here at Walter Reed I did not have oversight or visibility of. I do

now. I have been directed 2 weeks ago to shift my attention from

my other duties, which is the reset of the Army and the training

of the Army and other things, to put me as the No. 2 guy in the

uniformed services. My full attention is to fixing these issues.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Mr. WAXMAN. General Schoomaker, what do you say? Why do

you feel confident this is going to change?

General SCHOOMAKER. Well, because we are going to change it.

Mr. WAXMAN. You should have changed it before, but it didn’t

happen.

General SCHOOMAKER. There is no question. There is no argument with you about what should have happened. It clearly didn’t

happen.

As I said earlier, that if somebody had asked me 3 weeks ago,

what was one of the bright spots, it would have been the way that

we are now treating our wounded soldiers because of things like

the Wounded Warrior Program, because of the kinds of wonderful

things that are happening with the wonderful people that are

medically caring for our wounded soldiers.

Mr. WAXMAN. You were very wrong about what was going on.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. The gentleman’s time has expired.

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Mr. Lynch. I am sorry. Mr. Platts.

Mr. GEREN. Mr. Chairman, can I just say one thing briefly in response?

The only way to prove it to you is to show you. And I can assure

you from the top of this—from the Department of Defense down to

the folks working on the ground here in this hospital, there is a

commitment that is heartfelt. The Secretary of the Army appointed

a committee that is looking at it. Not only——

Mr. TIERNEY. The Secretary of the Army that is gone?

Mr. WAXMAN. What is your job? Liaison to the Congress?

Mr. GEREN. No, sir. It is not. It used to be. I am Under Secretary

of the Army.

Mr. WAXMAN. Did you know about all of these problems before?

Mr. GEREN. No, sir, I did not. Friday night——

Mr. WAXMAN. You just want to underscore that the commitment

is there for the future.

Mr. GEREN. No, I would like——

Mr. WAXMAN. Even though the commitment should have been

there for the past.

Mr. GEREN. Yes, sir. We have no excuse for the past.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Geren.

Mr. Platts.

Mr. PLATTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Appreciate the witnesses’ testimony and again all of your storied

service to our Nation in uniform and, also, Mr. Secretary, your

service on the civilian side.

I think part of what this hearing has been about is to get to the

bottom of what happened, why, and how we move forward positively and specific action, some that is breaking borders, some that

is human capital management and reallocation.

I think there is also a morale issue. We heard it certainly from

our first panel, where two soldiers who have served us courageously, spouse of a soldier who, you know, understandably maybe

have lost some faith in their government, their Army, their Nation,

how we have treated them.

To that point, I would hope that you would consider—we heard

the term ‘‘open door policy’’ here at Walter Reed. We heard town

hall meetings. Is that—you know, as Chief of Staff, as Acting Secretary, the new Commander of Walter Reed, perhaps a town hall

that—you are appearing before us as a congressional committee,

but to go out and do that town hall meeting with all of the senior

staff, with the families, with the personnel here today to say, you

know, we are listening. This shouldn’t have happened, and we are

going to make sure it never happens again.

I think, for morale, that certainly would be good, and not just to

the families and patients but to the staff of Walter Reed, that they

hear from the senior people that if you see wrongs like Building 18

you don’t have to wait for a patient to complain about it as a staff

member. Come forward. You know, we want you to tell us what is

going wrong.

Your staff is certainly going to be, you know, probably in the best

position to know what isn’t going right and that they know they

have the full support of the senior staff. I hope you will consider

that.

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I do want to touch on an issue that was touched on earlier about

the issue of Guard and Reserve coming through versus Active

Duty. In my previous role in the last two terms as chairman of the

Subcommittee on Financial Management, we dealt a lot with the

challenges of the Army, dealing with this huge service of surge

Guard and reservists, from a pay issue to travel reimbursement

and the challenge of the systems just not being ready to deal with

the volume that was going through it. My worry is there was a little bit of that here at Walter Reed on the medical side, and Staff

Sergeant Shannon touched on it, because of the soldier having to

deal with their home State and their status, Active Duty or on

medical hold.

Are we comfortable and, again, confident that we are doing right

by every soldier, regardless of Guard, Reserve, Active Duty, with

their medical care and then as we move forward addressing the

problems for all of them, regardless of their status before being activated?

Mr. GEREN. We are one Army, whether you are Guard, Reserve

or Active Duty. It is the duty of this Army to treat everyone the

same.

In the past, the Guard and Reserve were a strategic Reserve.

They are now part of the operating force of the U.S. Army. We

count on them every single day, and they cannot be treated differently when it comes to healthcare or anything else, pay or benefits. And that is a change. That is requiring culture change in some

regards in the U.S. Army, but we are committed to that. And in

the healthcare, absolutely, There should not be any distinction. Everyone deserves the highest quality care.

Mr. PLATTS. If we can prioritize as we go forward and especially

with the physical evaluations, because of the complexity of our systems, these legacy systems you are dealing with, that didn’t necessarily account for this volume that we really give special attention.

I have a Guard unit just came back from a year in Balad Air

Base in Iraq where we are doing right by them, the same as all

of our troops over there.

I know I am going to run out of time here quickly.

The one issue that General Kiley just touched on, but it seemed

to be out above his level, is the issue of the hand-off between the

Army, DOD and the VA and the issue of access to information. It

sounded from General Kiley that it was here at the Army department level or DOD itself on physicians at the VA having access to

medical records of those being transferred to those VA—specifically, the four centers dealing with the more traumatic cases. Do

we have any knowledge from the three of you about where that

stands? Is it an Army decision or is it DOD?

General CODY. I don’t know if it is a decision by Army, OSD, but

I will say that in the last 2 weeks as I have poured through this,

Congressman, the teamwork between the VA and all the services

is better than I have seen it in the past. I think we owe it, as

Army, to make sure that we do that hand-off and we not wait—

I don’t think we need any laws or anything else. I think we owe

it to the soldier to walk them through and hand off, and that is

why I talked about the Wounded Warrior Program.

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Once that happens, our caseworkers stay with the wounded warrior when we hand them off to the VA for 5 years. We have caseworkers around the country now located—on the Army payroll located at each one of these places so that we can continue to monitor our soldiers even though they are in the VA system. So I don’t

think it is anything more than better execution and better followup

and probably some more caseworkers.

Mr. PLATTS. I think that human capital issue is where we come

back to again.

Mr. TIERNEY. Time has expired.

Mr. Lynch.

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to thank the panelists for helping us again with our work.

I do want to qualify some earlier remarks I made. While I generally do not trust everything I read in the newspaper, I think that

the reporters in this case, Dana Priest and Anne Hull, did a remarkable job; and I think a lot of service families are going to benefit by the work that they have done.

We talked a little earlier with General Weightman about the survival rates. One of the good things that is happening right now is

our survival rates are the highest they have ever been. That means

the soldiers that would have perished on the battlefield years ago

now are coming home and we are saving them.

However, having been—you know, Mr. Platts and I actually followed troops who were injured in Iraq, taken to Balad, then to

Landstuhl and then back here to Walter Reed. My concern is that,

because we are saving them now, perhaps that is why we are seeing PTSD as a more profound dimension of disability and recovery;

and I am wondering if we are not paying a great enough attention

to it.

My specific question is, to followup on Chairman Tierney’s question, we heard from General Weightman earlier that, in light of the

President’s plan on a surge, this adding 21,500 troops into Baghdad, that the result of that plan could potentially result in much,

much higher casualties. What are we doing today here at Walter

Reed, given the fact that we are—let’s just say we are maxed out

or we are at the point of being overburdened here. What are we

doing right now to prepare for that possibility?

General SCHOOMAKER. Well, first of all, I would like to address

one piece of this and that is about the PTSD that you gratefully

brought up.

I have been testifying and concerned for quite some time about

the up tempo on the Army. I have testified to my concerns about

the readiness of the Army. I have testified to my concerns about

the fact that we have compressed now down to a year, and maybe

less in some cases, of reset time for soldiers.

PTSD is real; and it had another name, another age. But combat

affects people, and it will always affect people, as it always has,

and it needs to be paid attention to. Part of my concerns is that

resetting the human dimension, not just the hardware but the fact

that people’s recuperation time, their time to reintegrate and to do

those things, is one of the very real concerns that I have about the

level at which we are asking our soldiers to operate.

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In terms of what we are doing in anticipation of casualties and

management of casualties, I believe that—you know, I believe what

I have been told by the medical professionals that are looking at

such issues as different distribution across the country of those

that we could distribute. Overflight when it is not necessary to

bring somebody to Walter Reed. It may be able to be dealt with

someplace else. And there are probably a lot of other techniques,

things out in the medical regulation system, how they regulate casualties, and maybe perhaps the Vice has some ideas on what else.

General CODY. Yes, sir. We, too, are worried. We have been very,

very fortunate right now that we haven’t had mass casualties.

Every time—I will just say that every time a large aircraft flies,

we are concerned, as well as any type of suicide bombers; and what

we are doing right now is we are hiring many more caseworkers.

I put that out as part of our action plan. I talked about restructuring the Med Hold Brigade, the Wounded Warrior Brigade. I

have a colonel, a sergeant major and 126 leaders coming in in the

next 2 weeks to, one, get the ratio between a platoon sergeant to

the number of soldiers in the med hold we have right now.

We have directed that Building 18 be evacuated—not evacuated

but everybody leave it, and we are going to rebuild that facility and

then have the permanent party soldiers live at Building 18, which

gives us more on-campus capacity for our med hold so we don’t

have to put our soldiers off post. We are doing that.

The Soldier Family Assistance Center, we have increased the

number of finance people there, increased the number of caseworkers there so we can surge very quickly.

I will pick and check with the Under Secretary by Friday a Deputy Commanding General, one-star, to be the Deputy Commanding

General here at Walter Reed to help the new Commander with his

duties not just at Walter Reed but he has seven other hospitals in

the Northeast region. And my assessment is that he needs to have

a Deputy Commanding General. So we are going to have that.

This week, I will meet with all the hospital commanders; and we

are going to talk about these things we are discussing right now.

This is throughout the country as well as what happens if we have

a mass casualty event.

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, General.

I know my time is used up, but, General Schoomaker, I just want

to say I am heartened about your remarks regarding PTSD, and I

hope that is a reflection of the entire armed services on that issue,

because I think we need a lot of help on that.

Thank you. I yield back.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Lynch.

Mr. Turner.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Tierney.

General Cody, your ending statement about the mass casualties

leads into my question. To both General Schoomaker and General

Cody, we have all heard some very disturbing things in the testimony that we have had today; and it is just as disturbing of the

conditions of the circumstances as it is the round of ‘‘I didn’t

know,’’ ‘‘I didn’t know’’ that relate to a system failure.

It is not a policy failure. It is not a funding failure but a system

failure when people say I don’t know that a system was violating

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our policy or violating our standards. And that goes to leadership,

which is why it has been characterized as a leadership failure because it is not an issue of what people were handed. It is what they

did with it.

The most disturbing, I think, statement that I heard today was

from General Kiley when he said, we were not—he said, the complexity of the injuries of these soldiers was not fully realized. General Schoomaker, you have been the Chief of Staff since August 1,

2003, and, General Cody, you just described a scenario to us that

would be catastrophic, and I guess I am just at a loss as to what

types of injuries could the system have been anticipating if it didn’t

anticipate these types of injuries? Because I didn’t hear of any injury in the testimony today that was not anticipatable.

And, General Schoomaker, certainly from the beginning of this

conflict these types of injuries would have been those that would

have easily been projected; and, General Cody, you just gave us a

scenario that you think might occur in the future. We have, we

were told, 371 outpatient rooms that are caring for individuals who

were transferred from inpatient to outpatient and still General

Kiley is saying that the complexity of these injuries were not fully

realized. Can’t we anticipate this?

General Schoomaker. Sir, I didn’t hear General Kiley’s statements, so I don’t know from what context they were in. But from

what you are saying it sounds like it is not that we didn’t anticipate the fact that we would have traumatic injuries. It is that the

people that have survived some of these injuries, that in the past

never would have survived them, people that—I mentioned that I

have been down to the polytrauma center where people have traumatic brain injuries, amputations, lost their sight and hearing,

burns, a variety of very complex things that in previous wars they

never would have survived.

Mr. TURNER. From what point since August 2003, did that dawn

on us?

General SCHOOMAKER. Well, I think that the reason——

Mr. TURNER. Because it wasn’t last week. It wasn’t 2 weeks ago.

General SCHOOMAKER. Again, I don’t know what General Kiley

has led off, but 68 Whisky Medic, for instance, who we are training

tens of thousands of at Fort Sam Houston that are the old squad

medic, are now doing medicine that we would only see in Special

Operations before. The combat lifesaver that we are now doing

with all of the soldiers, the kind of first aid kit they carry, the kind

of training they have, the trauma medicine that we have, the regulation system that gets them to Landstuhl so quickly and places

like Walter Reed, the reason we have these things is because we

are anticipating them. We are saving these lives; and, like I told

you, I have had nothing but compliments about the way that we

have been treating the people—the medical treatment of the people

inside of our medical treatment facilities.

Mr. TURNER. General Schoomaker, I would invite you to look at

that testimony. Because just about everyone on this subcommittee

hearing was very surprised by it, and many people asked followup

questions. Because to have that be the testimony today of some of

the reasons of the circumstances is surprising, because it clearly

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seems to me that it is an anticipatable situation. But I appreciate

you taking a look at that.

Perhaps you could give us some greater—some additional followon to that post this hearing, Mr. Chairman.

General CODY. Could I say something about being anticipatory?

I am not a medical person, and so I can’t speak for what Dr.

Kiley said, but your Army looked at all the things on that battlefield as it emerged after the fall of Baghdad and when the IEDs

first started showing up on the battlefield. That is what changed

our ensemble for our soldiers. We used the medical experts here to

help us design other things than the SAPI plates, the arm protectors, the lower extremity protectors, as well as the helmet design,

as well as the additional plates that we put on the side.

I won’t get into details on this because, you know, we don’t want

to give away all of the things that we have done for the soldier.

But the medical community helped us very quickly address those

things as well as the type of wounds that we saw with IEDs in

Humvees versus other vehicles.

So we weren’t as fast as we should have been, but we are certainly anticipatory, and that is why so many of our soldiers are

surviving.

The other thing we did back when we looked at the numbers of

troops that were going to be needed for this fight, we put more

medevac helicopter units than we normally would in country. We

put in more forward surgical teams than we would have normally,

which is a good thing. We put more combat support hospitals in.

And because of that, that magic hour and that magic 2 hours, that

is why our soldiers are surviving.

Having that much pushed forward also puts a stress, and I think

Dr. Kiley or General Weightman mentioned it, puts stress back

here. Because we now have to have medical doctors so far forward,

and that is why the medical doctor ratio here at Walter Reed to

civilians is a little bit different than we have forward.

So we were anticipatory in a lot of these things, but, clearly, I

will go back and look at the testimony and see what he meant by

the types of wounds. That is the first I have heard it of it.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Yarmouth.

Mr. YARMOUTH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

One of the things that really disturbs me, listening to all of your

testimony and the prior panel, is that while you minimize the question of funding, virtually every problem that we have talked about

today and the media has talked about, involves something that

costs money, whether it is fixing up facilities that have deteriorated, whether it is providing more staff to handle the workload,

whether it is having part of your operation reclassifying people so

as to minimize the ongoing disability cost. Every aspect of this either would cost more money or it involves an activity that is trying

to save the government more money; and I wonder whether this

entire problem area involves not necessarily a question of motivation or even a systemic failure but the idea that we are trying to

do it on the cheap, as we have done so many other aspects of this

war on terror.

I suspect I know what the answer is going to be, but I want to

raise that question. Because in one of the Washington Post articles,

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a man is quoted named Joe Wilson, not the Ambassador, a clinical

psychologist here, who talked about the fact that he said they knew

all about these problems, but there was something about the culture of the Army that didn’t allow them to address it.

I am wondering whether it is not the culture, that we can’t afford

to go in and ask anybody for more money because we have to hold

the line somewhere, and we are spending it on bullets, and we are

spending it in other ways. But it seems astounding to me that you

can come here and say, we don’t need more money or resources to

correct these problems. That is just sounds inconsistent to me.

Mr. GEREN. If I could speak to that. The issues that we have

identified so far are not questions of money. We are going to study

this and look at some of the long-term policy implications.

And it is possible that we are going to have to come back and

redirect additional funding in this area. But our studies so far have

indicated that failure of leadership from a very high level all the

way down to the enlisted folks that are working with these wounded warriors, it identified just questions of management of the facilities, and then the other issues that we talked about in great length

about how the various disabilities systems work together, the transition to the VA.

At the end of the day we may come back. We are going to work

within the department. The President has announced a study, the

Secretary of the Army 2 weeks ago announced another study. We

could come back to the Congress with a package to address this

that would involve money. I am confident we are going to come

back to the Congress with a package to address some of the policy

issues.

But as Mr. Waxman pointed out, what is going on around the

rest of this country? Are we making sure we are looking under

every rock? We have a tiger team going out—started 2 weeks ago—

going to every single major medical facility any place in the country to make sure that the lessons that we have learned now are

carried across the country so that we don’t have something like this

happen again.

The new leader that was brought into Walter Reed was brought

in because of his leadership skills, and specifically, to address the

issues here. You can be sure he was appointed Friday afternoon,

Saturday morning he was here on the ground working this issue

and he has worked it nonstop since then.

Will we ask for more money? Eventually, who knows? We can’t

tell you right now. But we have the resources to meet this need in

the short term. In the long term, it raises additional issues and we

will be back to you with that.

Mr. YARMUTH. Let me followup just a minute because as Congressman Waxman mentioned, today’s Washington Post mentioned

problems in San Diego and my own State Fort Dix, North Carolina,

Fort Bragg seems like there is a lot of these problems. And I am

wondering whether there is some kind of mentality—maybe it is at

the lower levels too—that says we know we are strapped. We know

we can’t have any more money, therefore we are not going to bother reporting these. Is that potentially a problem or not?

General SCHOOMAKER. I hope not.

Mr. YARMUTH. I hope not too.

176

General SCHOOMAKER. Anybody that has watched what we have

been through over the last several years and has watched the

Army fight for money and saw what we did last year pushing back

on submitting a program until we could rectify some things and get

it through, I believe I heard General Kiley say that he felt that his

area of MEDCOM that he was fully funded under the global war

on terror. I don’t think there is a mentality that we are shy to ask

for the resources we want. But I can tell you, it is extraordinarily

difficult sometimes to understand what it is that is needed, where

it is needed and to work through the process to get it.

And, so, you know, I don’t know. You know, perhaps there may

be places out there that you could find people don’t have confidence

that if they ask for things that they can get it, but we certainly

been fighting tooth and nail to get the stuff we need.

Mr. TIERNEY. Gentleman’s time has expired.

Mr. GEREN. Congress has been very responsive. If we need

money for soldiers, you all have stepped up to the plate. We are

not shy about asking and you all haven’t been shy about delivering.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Mr. Braley.

Mr. BRALEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General Schoomaker

Secretary Geren, General Cody, General Kiley is an obstetrician,

and one of the things I learn going through Lamaze classes with

my wife is that it is helpful to have a focal point to get you through

periods of pain and discomfort and take your mind off what you are

dealing with.

And I don’t know if the three of you are familiar with this publication, Stripe, but I would encourage you to pick up a copy of it

and use this as your focal point in the months ahead. This is the

published in the interests of the patients and staff at Walter Reed

Army Medical Center. This is the March 2, 2007 issue, the most

recent issue. And you will see here in the upper left hand corner,

a picture of Secretary Gates visiting Walter Reed to talk about

some of the very issues we have been talking about today. And up

here in the upper right-hand corner, there is a story about Major

General Weightman being relieved of his command. And if you follow down here to what is happening in a real touch of irony, I

think you will see that today is patient safety week.

And here in this publication, it is encouraging people to remember this year’s theme, patient safety a road taken to together, a collective effort for safer health care. And it talks about the ongoing

efforts here at Walter Reed to promote patient safety.

One of the concerns this committee has is that we have heard

these claims before. We have heard how post traumatic stress disorder is not perceived the way it was in the movie Patton.

We would like to think that now, post traumatic stress disorder

is perceived the way it was portrayed in Band of Brothers when we

saw Sergeant Buck Compton, a very real hero, deal with the stress

of post traumatic stress disorder.

What I need to know, and what the other members of this committee need to receive assurances on, is how the Army is going to

put backbone behind the stories we see on the front page of Stripe

and assure the brave men and women in uniform serving this

country that their biggest challenge won’t be facing the hardships

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they face overseas, but the hardships they face when they return

to this country.

And one of the things that I am concerned about is in this story

that appeared in the Washington Post, General Weightman was

quoted as discussing that one of the responses that is going to take

care of some of these problems is an increase in the numbers of

case managers and patient advocates to help with the complex disability process, which is one of the biggest sources of delay.

And can any of you tell us how many patient advocates currently

serve the patients here at Walter Reed?

General SCHOOMAKER. I think we have an exact number on the

thing.

General CODY. I don’t have it. I do know the case worker load

that we are trying to get to, Congressman, is 1 to 35. And it has

not been that and I heard the other testimony, and I, quite frankly,

I don’t have the numbers with me. But we are increasing our caseworkers. But it is not just increasing caseworkers. It is the quality.

Mr. BRALEY. I want to make sure we are talking about the same

thing. I am not talking about case managers, which is a separate

function. I am talking about case advocates. You understand there

is a difference between the two. So when you are talking about that

ratio, are you talking about case managers to patients or patient

advocates to patients?

General CODY. Case managers to patients. The case managers

deal with the process and what we have to do is increase the number of advocates that we have for the patients when they go

through this MEB PEB process not just that, but also their stay

here. And that is the piece we have to work on.

Mr. BRALEY. Going back to my original question, can any of you

tell me how many patient advocates—not case managers—are currently employed to serve the patients at Walter Reed?

General SCHOOMAKER. I cannot tell you.

Mr. BRALEY. That’s a crisis that needs to be dealt with because

everything we heard during the first panel shows and the news articles that we are reading that is one of the No. 1 obstacles facing

veterans returning with disability claims. And I will be working

very hard with my staff to see that it gets addressed. And I will

welcome your further input on that subject.

Mr. TIERNEY. Gentleman yield back?

Mr. BRALEY. Yes.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank the gentleman. Ms. Foxx.

Ms. FOXX. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, gentlemen,

for being here. Again, I have been listening very carefully to the

kinds of things that are being talked about here. And it seems to

me that in my short time of being in office that I hear very many

of the same kinds of complaints from the civilian population when

it comes to dealing with disability and how the Social Security system works.

So I do think that it is a widespread problem that we are talking

about. I think that what has happened here has gotten the attention of the American people. And it should get the attention of the

American people. It should get the attention of Congress.

Again, I want to ask you about your commitment to making this

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side the military how we can improve what happens with disability. Because I know in my office, we have people who are trying

to get on disability, we have had people who have died waiting to

get on disability through the Social Security system.

Because I think that is a broken system too.

I am not sure your system is as broken as the one that we have

outside the military.

So I hope that you will look for ways to fix your system, make

it better. And I think it has gotten your attention. And I, again,

want to just hear you say—you have said it before—that you are

going to work to make it such that the system you have will be a

model not just for the military but for the civilian system too.

General SCHOOMAKER. That has always been our objective to

have military health care be a model for the world. And that is

what is so disappointing about where we find ourselves on this.

Ms. FOXX. Thank you.

Mr. TIERNEY. Gentlelady yield back.

Ms. FOXX. Yes, sir.

Mr. TIERNEY. Ms. McCollum.

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Well I asked the

question earlier the first panel about ombuds people being able and

ombudsmen. And my answer back was that there is zero. There is

no one here that is seen as an impartial entity that people can go

to where they really feel that sides haven’t been taken. And in the

VA they have veterans county service offices. But they are being

overwhelmed right now with being able to do what they need to do.

I appreciate what you gentlemen have said about working to be

better prepared. We were not prepared with the conflict we found

ourselves into because of poor planning, and I will say that is my

opinion.

But I think it is beared out that this is not the war that many

of those who in Congress who voted for thought it was going to be.

I am glad I didn’t vote for it. We saw injuries to eyes, burns, amputees, all quite often due to equipment failure and not having the

right gear available for the soldiers, and yes, the Army and the rest

of the service has reacted and tried to address those issues.

But when it comes to the traumatic brain injury and with the

post traumatic stress syndrome, I am feeling some alarms going

off. And I know that there was discussion about doing further

study.

One alarm is, with cognitive skills tests that are being given, as

we have lowered the educational standards to meet recruitment

needs, we are going to have soldiers coming in who are not going

to be high school graduates in all cases. And I don’t know what

kind of testing you are using, but I don’t want to see someone who

signs up, who has a GED, penalized later on by a test that is given

to decide whether or not their cognitive ability is up to speed.

With post traumatic stress syndrome, it wasn’t that long ago that

someone was going to sit at a desk and review documentation and

take veterans off—off the rolls for being, for having been originally

clinically diagnosed with post traumatic stress syndrome.

So I am a little concerned about how these unseen, untouchable

injuries are going to be handled.

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And so as you are preparing, and I heard what you are going to

try to do here, and I pray that you are able to do it, I want to know

what you are going to tell the VA that they need to do in order to

be prepared. What kind of funding are they going to need? What

kind of bed space are they going to have to start reopening? What

is their staffing levels going to have to be? What is the handoff

here?

Because General Cody, I appreciate the fact, and I think it is

magnificent that there is a wounded warrior program. But years

after these men and women come home, they are just called veterans by many.

And there are still many of them for Korea and World War II are

still waiting to get into the VA system today. What are you telling

the VA to be able to hand these warriors off to them for their care?

General CODY. First, Congresswoman, I couldn’t agree with you

more. We are going to fix this. We have a passion for it. These are

our soldiers. These are our veterans.

The ombudsman I brought up I guess a week ago when they

started talking about the handoff. And I said well, who is the advocate during this process? And who does the soldier turn to if he

agrees or disagrees or has a problem? And I didn’t get the satisfactory answer, so I directed that we come up with a ombudsman type

program for the soldiers going through the system.

The coordination that we have to do with the Veterans Administration is ongoing. I will have to go look into it. Quite frankly, I

have been focused here on Walter Reed, and I have not looked at

what our service surgeon generals have done informing the Veterans Administration as to what type of more bed space or what type

of more type of specialist they need as our soldiers transition into

the Veterans Administration.

I do know on the traumatic brain injury that a lot of work has

been done. But PTSD and some of these other types of injuries we

will have to go back—I will have to go back and find out what our

surgeon generals are telling—all the surgeon generals are telling

the VA.

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Thank you.

Mr. TIERNEY. Gentlelady yield back?

Ms. MCCOLLUM. I yield back.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. Mr. Hodes.

Mr. HODES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, thank you for

being here today.

As you know, the administration has proposed a increase in troop

strength in Iraq.

And if that moves forward, it means that folks who have been

deployed and redeployed may be redeployed again with increasingly shorter timeframes between their deployments.

What steps are you taking in terms of the medical system to ensure that people with PTSD and traumatic brain injuries are not

being inappropriately redeployed to active service?

General CODY. We have a followup, once a—first off, we screen

soldiers before they come out of theater. And then we screen them

as part of the, if they are active duty soldiers as part of their redeployment back at their home station. And if they are reserve component soldiers, we have a screening upon their—before we demobiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:03 Mar 20, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00183 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\40852.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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lize them. Then we have another program, after 120-day followup

program to re-evaluate any soldiers that have problems.

Now, I will report to you today that program is not going as well.

I just got the Inspector General’s report today, the outbriefing this

morning before this hearing, and we need to do better at training

our leaders. We can put all the medical specialists out there, but

our leaders are the ones that are going to see that soldier first and

say Specialist Jones has a problem.

And so because of the op tempo, we have not trained some of our

leaders as well as we should to be looking for these type of things.

And that is something that I have directed that we readdress. But

we screen them when we come out. They have a reintegration program right after they come back from combat and then 120-day followup program.

I don’t know if those measures are right. That is what our doctors have told me and that is one of the things I am looking at

right now.

Mr. HODES. Is the screening that you are talking about being

done by physicians, psychiatrists.

General CODY. Yes. We have a questionnaire and they tell me

that there is questions there that will indicate that there are problems. And I am not deep enough into it, Congressman, to give you

an accurate assessment.

Mr. HODES. What do you think is the timeframe for your figuring

out what the problems are with this process and for fixing it?

General CODY. I think we know we have a problem because of

the op tempo. As the chief has said, you know we are—the op

tempo of the Army is just like you said, 1 year in about 12 months

out and then you are going back in. So that puts a stress to make

sure that we get this post deployment assessment done.

So I am sure that it is not as good as it should be. I probably

will find out here when I talk to our hospital commanders this

week and that will be part of our army action plan to address soldiers that would not necessarily be eligible to deploy again.

Mr. HODES. I anticipate that there may be some tension between

the need to redeploy people and determining whether or not they

are suffering from severity of PTSD or TBI that would, in the order

course, prevent or argue against their deployment.

What guidance is coming from the top down the ranks to give

our soldiers the benefit of the doubt so that they are not getting

sent out with PTSD and TBI that ought to disqualify them from

having to go back into active service?

General CODY. I don’t know if we have any guidance out. You are

talking about leadership 101 here. You are talking about first sergeants, platoon sergeants, company commanders, the first line supervisors. My experience in the last 2 years of being here at Walter

Reed and talking to soldiers that are still in units but have PTSD

is I am heartened by the fact that our first line supervisors recognize that a soldier has PTSD, and in one case when I was up talking to a soldier and asked him if he was afraid to come forward,

he said no, my leadership took good care of me. My platoon sergeant has been here and my first sergeant has been here and they

know that I need to get well and they are supporting me.

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That is just a small sample size. Clearly we had better go back

and check this. But I will tell you we have great leaders in charge

and we have a very seasoned set of leaders that has been in combat

several times. My son is a company commander getting ready to go

back to his fourth combat tour. I am sure he is not going to deploy

with any soldier that has these problems and my hope is he and

other company commanders will see that and make sure the medical personnel are properly alerted. But it is something we are going

to have to go back and check.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you Mr. Hodes. Your time has expired. I am

sorry. Mr. Welch.

Mr. WELCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Generals I am sure you

agree that the cost of the war has to include the cost of paying for

treatment for the warrior. And there’s a report from Peter Garibaldi, the garrison commander, about the privatization that occurred about services here at Walter Reed. And what I understand

the decision to privatize support services, there was 300 Federal

employees, doing facilities management and related work and then

IAP which is a company run by someone who used to be with Halliburton. They eventually took over and the number of personnel

dropped in the range of one report is 60 and I think an earlier witness today said it was closer to 100.

Has the decision to move to privatization and essentially replace

contract Government employees who have experience and have

been doing a good job as I understand it, with private contractors

been detrimental to the delivery of services that our returning veterans need?

General SCHOOMAKER. Sir, if I could take one swing at that, and

I am not expert in privatization but I can tell you that there’s a

lot of demand on the force and we have been trying to grow the

operational force of the Army. And there has been a lot of effort

to make sure that anyplace that we have soldiers doing things,

have soldiers doing things or somebody else could do them, we

want soldiers doing things that only soldiers can do.

Now I don’t think that is the case here at Walter Reed. I think

what we went through at Walter Reed was this A–76 thing, study,

that basically competed the DPW against a private entity, and this

thing went on, I think, since what, 2004, Dick?

General CODY. It is the A–76 competition against the department

of public works which was an entity of Government DA civilians.

And they initially won the competition. And then it was protested.

And then in the protest, IAP won and then it was protested again.

So this thing started from 2004 and finally got to where IAP, which

won the contract, I guess they took over about February 7th.

General SCHOOMAKER. That is the point I was trying to make is

this was a very unusual kind of transaction that took place. And

then you have BRAC on top of this which people then are concerned about their future.

Mr. WELCH. That is my point. It seems very unusual. You have

competent employees who won the bid, then their bid was reversed

for no explicit or clear reason, and then IAP, which gets $120 million contract, then downsizes further more obviously boosting profits but apparently compromising service that presumably is a concern to you. Correct?

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General SCHOOMAKER. Totally a condition. But it is also something that we normally would not have any visibility into or anything you know that we can’t influence that process once that

starts.

Mr. WELCH. Thank you. I understand that. That goes on outside

of you.

You know, General Weightman served here for 6 months and he

was the person in charge at the time these reports came out from

the Washington Post. But the information that we have received so

far is that the conditions pre-existed his arrival and that he was,

in fact, taking some concrete steps to address them.

Obviously once this story gets front page news, it creates an

enormous amount of anxiety and turmoil and demands a public response. But bottom line question is this: Has General Weightman

been treated fairly or has he been a scapegoat?

General SCHOOMAKER. First of all, I wouldn’t take part in something that was a charade. I think it addresses one’s integrity, OK,

and the Secretary of the Army looked at this situation. All of us

were very upset with what we saw and concerned about it and felt

that the kinds of conditions that were here that we were not aware

of should have been highlighted in the timeframe that—regardless

of when they started—with the commander that is here.

When you take a look at who is accountable and the Secretary

had said he had lost confidence in General Weightman and he

made the decision to do it. Nobody pressured anybody to do it. And

nobody was lobbying to do it or looking for anything.

But you know it is clear that there were issues here that were

bigger than a couple of platoon sergeants and a company commander. Listen, General Weightman has a tremendous reputation.

He is a fine doctor. I have known him for a long time. You know,

my view is he has a lot that he can do yet for us. But the Secretary

of the Army felt that this was what was required and he made that

decision. I supported it.

Mr. WELCH. Thank you, General. I yield.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. Ms. Norton.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don’t know which of

you I should speak to, but I think it is at your level, this GAO report—literally just out—challenges encountered by injured service

members during the recovery process. One of the things we have

been trying to get to the bottom of is the frustration that we heard

in testimony from veterans caught in what I can only call the indecision of the bureaucracy where the soldier doesn’t really know his

fate and he feels caught in a bureaucratic tangle.

Virtually, all the testimony from the brass has essentially said

this was a leadership problem whereas the Members have identified a systemic problem they say is nationwide. Where as the testimony seems to say change the people that will change the system.

The GAO, it seems to me, points to really a quite pregnant example. It says in here, I am quoting, VA’s efforts may conflict with

the military’s retention goals.

Interestingly, I don’t know who put this chart here, but there’s

a chart I tried to find out who it was from, disability rating, different, differences example where they put an example from the

VA and an example from the PEB or the health system, and, where

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the same soldier with the same disabilities is rated 40 percent disabled by one and 70 percent disabled by another.

Now that says to me that not only do computers not talk to one

another, but even freshly injured soldiers—we are not talking

about soldiers whose problems may have developed since the release and therefore they have been in the system.

General SCHOOMAKER. I think you will see 2 different laws involved, one for the VA and one——

Ms. NORTON. I am not suggesting that somehow they should be

the same, so please don’t misunderstand me nor does GAO it says

in particular, DOD was concerned about the timing of VA’s outreach to service members whose discharge from military service is

not yet certain.

DOD was concerned that VA’s efforts may conflict with the military’s retention goals. It seems, obviously who pays for what between these two agencies comes into play here. And here we have

a surge about to happen. In fact, some say the surge may be over

by May, then the soldiers may all be there.

Until now, these people were not—our soldiers clearly were not—

there was an attempt to keep them out of the middle of what was

increasingly a civil war. Now we send them right into the middle

of it. And I am concerned we are going to get more people who

come back and need to talk to both systems at the same time, and

wonder what you can do to keep a soldier from experiencing two

different rating systems and then to ask you who in the world—

whose job is it to figure out what the soldier finally gets fairly?

General CODY. Madam Congressman, let me take that on, because I am as frustrated with it as you are, and really gets to the

heart of the issue. First, let me be clear that it is not just a leadership problem. We understand that when we talk about leadership

failure, it dealt with just the one symptom of Building 18 and the

Med Hold unit. We all recognize it is a much larger bureaucratic

morass that our wounded soldiers have to face.

The chart you just held up is an interesting chart. You are talking about Title 38 for the VA and Title 10 for the military. When

we look at a disability rating for the military, it deals with being

unfit for service in the military. So if Sergeant Jones loses an eye

like we have on that chart, but he has vision in his other eye, we

assess him as 40 percent disability. He may have lost hearing. He

may have lost some lower teeth, and he may have some scars.

Those particular things would not make him unfit for military

duty. However—so that is why he get assessed by 40 percent under

the rules of Title 10 on how we look at disability. I don’t agree with

it, but that is how it is.

The VA under Title 38 can assess all those things and so the soldier sits there and says, service will give me 40 percent, VA will

give me 70 percent. And that is the first confusion.

The second confusion is depending upon disability, if you are a

lower enlisted soldier, you probably fare better under those circumstances than a E 7 or an officer because it is based upon—for

the military based upon years of service and base salary.

Ms. NORTON. So does the soldier gets to choose? Who chooses?

General CODY. What we do is and this gets to the point what we

talked about between the MEB process and the PEB process, the

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process that the last Physical Evaluation Board we have a liaison

officer. That is a clutching mechanism. And that is the piece we

have to fix. And we have to do a better job educating the soldier,

because it is very, very confusing. Let me give you one more that

will just upset you.

Ms. NORTON. You haven’t answered me who gets to say which—

these numbers are——

General CODY. The soldier gets to pick. The soldier picks. And

you are sitting there. And it is very complex. I had a 2-hour session

on it one night and had to come back and give it to me again just

on one thing.

Ms. NORTON. Who advises the soldier who has to pick?

General CODY. The liaison officer. And if he does not like the ruling of the Physical Evaluation Board, then he can appeal it. And

then the lawyers—because it is a process, a discharge, the lawyers

come and advise him as to what is best for him or her.

But at the end of the day it looks unfair and quite frankly, we

are being a little stingy as a Nation. And we have to look at this

whole thing.

General SCHOOMAKER. And soldiers have said they feel

disrespected because they have to go through that. They have said

that.

General CODY. They have to demand and fight for it. And they

shouldn’t have to.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. If I may say

so, we talked about all kinds of computers not talking to one another. We talked about all parts of the system we could understand

not being fixed. What concerns me about these soldiers is that they

are fresh out of war. And whether or not you can fix this throughout the system and not focus on short-term versus long-term fixes,

the burden being on the soldier to then appeal and the rest of it,

these were not people who had a mental difficulties.

And it seems to me that one of the first orders of business would

be to get your two departments of the government so that they

agree on a way to deal with these soldiers that would reduces considerably not only the confusion but the time spent in two systems

trying to figure out which one is best for you.

It is more than we ought to ask a soldier to do.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Ms. Norton.

Gentlemen, I understand all the confusion that has taken place

since we started having these hearings scheduled, including our requests for documents that were sent out some time ago. But we,

since then, had two commanders out here at the facility. So can I

have your assurance that our request for documents will be provided to us in short order? And we have an additional request that

will be going out since learning that this may be a little more systemic than we thought of just Walter Reed, we will be expanding

that out and we would like to know we will have your cooperation

getting the information with respect to complaints that might have

been made or efforts to resolve those complaints. Do I have that?

Mr. GEREN. Let me say about the document, I have not had an

opportunity to review the document request. And there may be

some issues we would have to discuss with the committee. So I

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don’t want to make a blanket commitment until we have an opportunity to——

Mr. TIERNEY. Too bad. I liked it better when General

Schoomaker and General Cody nodded their heads. I understand.

I don’t believe you will find there is any problem. It is pretty

straightforward, and we would expect that they should be met

without much difficulty on that.

One last thing, in the privatization process, it is not a decision

for General Weightman when he was here. It wasn’t a decision for

his superior, General Kiley. It wasn’t a decision for General Cody.

And it is not a decision for General Schoomaker. So this whole

thing is what, a political decision? It kicks up to the suits? I mean,

who decides whether something is going to get bid off? This is a

medical facility within our armed services. I would think that each

of you gentlemen and then the surgeon general and then the commander here would have the best idea of what kind of service our

patients need.

General SCHOOMAKER. Because it is a legal process, and in this

particular case it was challenged, the decision.

Mr. TIERNEY. But it is not your process, you didn’t start it.

General SCHOOMAKER. It is not. It is law and policy.

Mr. TIERNEY. The Secretary is the one that operates that process

on down?

Mr. GEREN. I don’t know how the decision is made to engage the

A–76 project for a specific function of government. I will get back

to the committee.

Mr. TIERNEY. It is amazing that the people most involved in the

care don’t.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, could I ask that they get back to us

on how much privatization of army facilities is going on at this

time? We had here the entire base, garrison base being privatized.

It does seem to me the committee needs to know how systemic that

process is throughout the Army hospitals throughout the United

States.

General SCHOOMAKER. We will have to respond for the record.

Mr. TIERNEY. If you would. Thank you.

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Chairman, could I get one clarification, too, on

this chart here. Is it such that if a person has 40 percent disability

from the left side that they are able to remain in the military and

draw their disability as opposed to becoming a veteran and drawing the other disability? Is that the distinction that is being made

here?

General CODY. No, ma’am. It is very complex, but 30 percent and

above you get to be medically retired. If you are less than 30 percent, you don’t get to be medically retired and you could get more

percentage from the VA than you could from the military, based

upon the VA data tables. And that is the confusion.

But in this case here because this soldier—this is a sample—this

soldier lost an eye. He was 40 percent disabled so he was medically

retired. However, based upon the other injuries, they did not

render him unfit for the military duty so he wasn’t scored. Against

VA tables he was scored and he would be better off going into the

VA as a medical retired soldier.

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General SCHOOMAKER. But ma’am, you know there are amputees,

for instance, that fight to stay on active duty that have 30 percent

and greater, and they have to fight through the process to be able

to do that and prove their abilities, their fitness to stay.

Mr. TIERNEY. Specialist Duncan, in fact, was one that was fighting through the process on that.

Ms. FOXX. And how many people do you have currently? Excuse

me, Mr. Chairman.

General CODY. I have that number.

Ms. FOXX. You can give that to me later, that is OK.

Mr. TIERNEY. Let us thank Mr. Secretary and Generals, and all

those who helped make this facility available and to accommodate

us here today. We also want to thank all of the men and women

who are patients here and fair families to allow us to use this as

a forum to dig deeper into those matters. We appreciate the fact

that this is a complex problem, one that we have to work on together. It is not partisan and it is certainly not anything that is

going to be done overnight. But we will be come back, as we said

to General Kiley, in about 45 days or so looking for followup on this

and hoping that we will have good news on that and good news

that could come from all of that is that we focus and get to work

on it, and together we come to a resolution for our men and women

who have served us so well and to whom we owe so much. So

thank you very much with that, the meeting is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 3:30 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

[Additional information submitted for the hearing record follows:]

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