Amputee Center Being Built at Walter Reed (on list of bases closing)

[ProSense]

Amputee Center Being Built at Walter Reed
By BRETT ZONGKER, Associated Press Writer
Tue Jan 17, 1:58 AM ET


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

The $10 million Military Amputee Training Center — originally expected to open last month — was caught in limbo during the Pentagon's base closing process. Ground was broken in 2004, but construction had not yet begun last May when the Army ordered a hold on all projects that could be affected by the Base Closure and Realignment Commission


Snip...

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


Snip...

"Congress is not going to appropriate money when it already has a working hospital," she said, adding that the expanded amputee center is needed now. "We are simply talking about the need to accommodate many more seriously wounded Iraq and Afghanistan soldiers than anybody contemplated."


more...

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

[mom cat]

1. Chickenhawk Bush hates the soldiers who all have more courage than

he does. Does he think that if we don't take care of our wounded that they will just disappear?
Why not investigate the pentagon to fine the last trillion dollars they lost? Why is that not happening? The money must be somewhere.

[zbdent]

2. not surprising - the VAMC in Brecksville Ohio

just completed a multi-million dollar renovation shortly after it was announced that it will be vacated in 5 years.

Gotta make the buildings all nice so that the city of Brecksville can get top dollar for renting it out to businesses . . .