This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Walter Reed

  • Joan Baez banned from Walter Reed

    I don’t usually comment on news about entertainers, but I’m pretty sure it’s safe to say that Joan Baez stopped entertaining anyone about 40 years ago – so my self-imposed restriction remains intact. Anyway, the Washington print media are a-buzz about the Army denying Baez entry to Walter Reed to screech for the troops. From the Washington Examiner;

    Folk singer and anti-war activist Joan Baez says she doesn’t know why she was not allowed to perform for recovering soldiers recently at Walter Reed Army Medical Center as she planned.

    In a letter to The Washington Post published Wednesday, she said rocker John Mellencamp had asked her to perform with him last Friday and that she accepted his invitation.

    “I have always been an advocate for nonviolence and I have stood as firmly against the Iraq war as I did the Vietnam War 40 years ago,” she wrote. “I realize now that I might have contributed to a better welcome home for those soldiers fresh from Vietnam. Maybe that’s why I didn’t hesitate to accept the invitation to sing for those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. In the end, four days before the concert, I was not ‘approved’ by the Army to take part. Strange irony.”

    “Strange irony?” I don’t think it’s strange or ironic. For one thing, I don’t think most of the troops at Walter Reed even know what the ancient gasbag does or did. Other than playing for aging hippes who long for their wasted youth, what does she do for a living these days so anyone the age of our troops would recognize her?

    For another thing, we know that the 66 year-old would feel a need to “speak truth to power” and what volunteer soldier who just sacrificed a limb or their youth for their country want to hear about how Baez thinks they’re babykillers and puppy-rapers?

    From the Washington Post;

    Reached by telephone yesterday at her home in Menlo Park, Calif., Baez, 66, said she wasn’t told why she was given the boot, but speculated, “There might have been one, there might have been 50 [soldiers] that thought I was a traitor.”

    …or there could have been one soldier who actually remembered who the Hell you are. Maybe not that many, even. The fact that you contributed greatly to the disrespectful treatment of our troops when they returned from Viet Nam and the Army’s desire to comfort the wounded troops might have something to do with the Army’s decision. Think?

    “One of my more cynical friends said, ‘They let the rats in, why not you?’ ” Baez said, laughing, referring to a recent expose of living conditions at Walter Reed.

    I don’t know why you’re laughing. Do you and your friend think you’re better than a rat? Well, the rest of us don’t, ya old hag.

    After the concert, Baez said, Mellencamp left her a message to say, “I hope you’re not mad at me.” Her response: ” ‘Of course not. It’s an honor to be turned down by the Army.’ . . . But I would have been happier getting in . . . I thought times had changed enough.”

    You’re still living in the 60s and you “thought times had changed”? Remember the veteran who spit on Jane Fonda a few years back? What makes you think that there’s a statute of limitations on treason in the minds and opinions of Americans.

    The fact that Baez thinks that it’s an honor to be turned down by the Army, as opposed to being ashamed she’s been rejected by the institution that defends her right to sing what she wants, is proof the Army made the right choice.

    Personally, I applaud the Army’s decision. Usually, the Army makes the politically correct decision for PR purposes – this time they just made the right decision. Why give this brain-dead, crotch-rotted, screeching hag a platform from which she can bite the hand that feeds her?

    Army Strong!

    UPDATE: According to the Washington Post , “At Walter Reed, Mellencamp Shuts His Mouth and Sings”. You can bet that we couldn’t have counted on Baez to behave similarly.

  • Code Pink; US troops “terrorists”/new GOE Rally

    Redhunter has all of the Freeper links to the dust up that happened outside of the Walter Reed gate this last Friday when Code Pinks aging hippies decided to interupt a Canadian TV crew interviewing the DC Freepers supporting our wounded troops. But to summarize, some old bag said our troops were the terrorists in Iraq. After getting some nasty, bleeped responses from the Freepers and consulting with another old bag, she corrcted herself to mean our troops were “terrorizing” – as if that made the comment better.

    Odd what the Left thinks “supporting the troops” means.

    Now, I’ve been to the Walter Reed main gate on Friday nights, and when I confronted the Code Pinks hags, I was escorted away from the scene by Metro police last Spring when Code Pink first started their protests. 

    Yeah, that was the crowd, and that was the cop protecting them.

    Here’s the rest the contingent;

    The little old bag in the front begged me to take her picture and when I told her she was too fugly, she sicced the cop on me – demanding that I apologize or she’d file assault charges. I didn’t apologize, but I moved along as the officer demanded.

    Doesn’t look like the Freepers enjoy the same protection from Code Pink, though, looking at the video they’ve linked up. I didn’t see any cops on the Freepers’ corner in the video.

    It looks like the Code Pinkers have abandoned their post on Friday nights – the Freepers appear to occupy every corner at that intersection of Georgia Avenue. Despite the fact that they had a major protest planned in DC yesterday, according to Ankle Biting Pundits’ Patrick Hynes. Seems that they would have had a bigger crowd for Friday.

    Sweetness and Light has a characteristically long post on the worldwide “Impeach!” movement and points out that the Washington post didn’t even have a picture of the protesters.

    See the mighty Code Pink website report of the nationwide Impeach Bush protest – they have even linked to YouTube with a stunning video of 164 yellow plastic cups stuck in a fence to spell “Impeach!” some-damn-where in California. Those folks are so fearless. What a bunch of ‘tardbats.

    According to ANSWER’s website, another protest is scheduled for May 23rd – a Wednesday. I suppose they figure that if they have protests during the work week, fewer counterprotesters will attend – cuz we have jobs. Code Pinks plans another Mother’s Day protest in Lafayette Park across from the White House. I think I’ll skip that this year – I got escorted by Park Police out of that one, too.

    I guess the Leftists are getting all of their protests out of the way before the Memorial Day Rolling Thunder event happens and all of those patriots from the Gathering of Eagles will be back in town.

    Speaking of Gathering of Eagles, May 26th from 11:00 -3:00 will be the GOE and Rolling Thunder coordinated “Support Our Troops” rally at the Reflecting Pool east of the Lincoln Memorial for the largest troop support rally ever held in the nation. Clear your schedule.

    Completely unrelated but while I have your attention, Mike at Flopping Aces channeled Doctor Suess yesterday, and wrote this hillarious piece about Harry Reid. Kept me giggling all night.

  • Sometimes I forget; today I remembered

    Sometimes I get so wrapped in the politics of this war against terror, I forget what it’s really about. When Harry Reid makes bonehead comments about losing the war in Iraq, when John Murtha calls our troops murderers, when Dick Durbin calls our troops SS concentration camp guards, when Nancy Pelosi kisses the ring of terrorist supporting despots, I get so fricken angry that all I can do is just pound out my thoughts about the hatred I have for those sorry excuses for humans on this poor cracked and dented keyboard.

    Today, though, I forgot about them for a minute.

    Most of my readers know that every Saturday morning I go to Walter Reed Army Medical Center for my weekly dose of SOS (it stands for “Shit on a Shingle”; hamburger gravy over scrambled eggs and a biscuit – the real reason I stayed in the Army for twenty years). I love being among soldiers, and I love SOS so it’s the highlight of my week.

    Today was a little different. My wife and I were coming out of the parking garage and a young soldier and his wife were making their way into the hospital, too. He was in a wheel chair and his right leg was gone just below his thigh – I noticed he was wearing an 82d Airborne Division T-shirt. So as I walked by him, I shook his hand and said “Thanks, Airborne”. He gave me a big smile and took my hand firmly and said “Thanks” to me.

    Then I asked him what unit he was in and he told me he’d been attached to the ’05 (That’s the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment) when he’d been wounded in Tikrit. That’s what he called it – wounded. His whole right leg was gone, but he called it a wound. So I grabbed his wheelchair and started pushing him toward the elevators and we talked – I’d told him I’d been in the Three-Two-Five 25 years ago and he laughed and asked how my knees were holding up. We carried on like two old friends, two brother paratroopers reminiscing.

    He told me that he was convalescing well and he hoped to be out of the hospital soon and that he wanted to remain on active duty. That he’d heard other guys whining about their condition, but he was going to hold up just fine. I told him that he sounded like he was holding more than just fine and we smiled at each other. I hope he didn’t notice I was holding back tears – tears of pride in the generation that succeeded mine. 

    We all got on the elevator and went up to the third floor where my wife and I were getting off. He stuck his hand out and thanked me for my service. HE THANKED ME! I was dumbfounded. This twenty-year-old kid, missing his leg, was thanking me for my service. I grabbed his hand and thanked him for doing what I couldn’t do any more, and I got off the elevator in a partial daze.

    It was at that moment I realized these kids don’t care about the politics, they don’t give a tiny rat’s ass that Code Pink stands their drones up in front of Walter Reed with idiot Bush=Hitler signs. They don’t care that Nancy Pelosi is the Speaker of the House or that Harry Reid makes moronic statements that he later “regrets” were taken out of context. They don’t care what Jack Murtha or Dick Durbin say about them.

    All they care about is their job, doing it right, keeping us safe and living up to legacy that they’ve been left by the generations of warriors that came before them. All the talk about conditions at Walter Reed, all the surrender flag-waving rhetoric and hippie drum beating is just background noise. These folks are writing our history and they don’t have time for the critics and naysayers.

    Sometimes I forget that this war isn’t about the politics, but today a young paratrooper and his young wife reminded me. And I think we’ll all be just fine.

  • Army told “Hurry up and wait”

    Now all of the Democrats who whined so loudly and so long about the condition of OUTPATIENT facilities at Walter Reed Army Medical Center are trying to block the expansion of facilities at Bethesda Naval Hospital to accomodate the Walter Reed move. According to Steve Vogel of the Washington Post;

    A review panel’s recommendation that the Pentagon accelerate the expansion of the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda drew a wary reaction yesterday from local officials and neighbors concerned about traffic problems.

    * * * * *

    The report says the Pentagon should speed up the 2005 decision by the Base Realignment and Closure Commission to consolidate medical care at the Bethesda facility. It recommends that money to break ground for the expansion be released as soon as possible and that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates “accelerate or waive” an environmental study being conducted by the Navy.

    But Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who represents Montgomery County in Congress, said yesterday, “We shouldn’t be cutting any corners.

    “Some people are saying let’s slam on the brakes; others are saying we should hit the accelerator,” Van Hollen said. “I think we should proceed in a deliberate way.”

    Yes, that’s my Congressman. He’s quick to hit at the Bush Administration, but slow to act in the interests of our nation and our troops.  A few weeks ago, the troops were a “priority”, now the priority is the poor dregs who’ll be stuck in traffic on Wisconsin Avenue because they’re too damn lazy to take the bus or the subway to work.

    But he’s not the only one. Jim “Fighting Drunk” Moran;

    But some members of Congress, including Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), insist that Walter Reed be kept open. “What you’re doing is changing horses in the middle of the stream at a time when soldiers need the best medical care,” Moran said yesterday.

    According to what Democrats were saying a few weeks ago, that’s what they wanted to happen – they wanted to change horses in mid-stream.

    And from the ugliest woman to walk the floor of the Senate;

    Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) also expressed concern about closing Walter Reed, “given the current strain on patient care for our soldiers.”

    So let me get this right – Democrats want everything to change for the troops, except everything must remain the same. This is classic Democrat double talk. they’ve done the same thing on the war, on education, on welfare reform, on Social Security, on nearly every issue before them. They want everything done yesterday – but only as long as nothing changes.

    So why do the Democrats want to slow down on Walter Reed? Because the District stands to lose 6,000 jobs when the medical facility moves 10 miles away to Bethesda (keep in mind driving ten miles through the District and southern Maryland can take two hours depending on the time of day). Most of those jobs are menial kitchen and jantorial labor. There’s nothing in that area to attract businesses that could replace such an employer.

    The District wants the Army to just turn over the buildings to the city, so the city can turn the buildings, which are too dilapidated for outpatients, into low-rent apartments so the District can have some more slums to warehouse the il-educated denizens of DC. At this time the Army is resisting that plan – so Demorats are waiting for a friendlier administration that will let them become the Mid-Atlantic’s slum lords. 

    Read all of the Washington Post’s genuine frontpage concern for the troops here, before the Democrats started stonewalling the process and got this particular story moved to page 3 while the frontpage is reserved for really important stuff like Rove’s missing emails and FEMA’s wasted food.

  • My wife just got coined

    My civilian-for-life bride just got coined at work.

  • “Where have you been?”

    According to the Washington Post, during yesterday’s hearings about the Walter Reed dust-up;

    “I have to tell you, the first thing that pops into my mind is: Where’ve you been? Where has all the brass been?” said Rep. John F. Tierney (D-Mass.), who convened the hearing as chairman of the national security and foreign affairs subcommittee. “All the things that [were] heard, read about and heard 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’d ask Mr Tierney the same question. When this war began, supposedly back when the Democrats still supported the President, I made rounds to the wounded soldiers in some of the wards. The nephew of a high school friend had been in that Chinook crash right before Thanksgiving of 2003 when about 60 troops were killed. He miraculously survived but lost part of one of his legs. Well, anyway, I smuggled him in a bottle of Saranac Black and Tan, a local brew from back home, and his wife came over to our apartment a few times and fixed him a couple of homecooked meals to take to the hospital.

    While I was up there, I talked to some of the troops (one of my favorite past times) and none of them had been visited by their Congressional reps, so I started taking down their names and hometowns and faxing the information to Congressional offices.

    After awhile, it got too overwhelming because idiot staffers would call me at work and ask stupid questions about how they could verify that the information I sent them was true, doctors names and phone numbers – all the stuff they could find out with a simple call to the Walter Reed PAO. Besides, I’d influenced enough people to get them pro-active on visiting their constituents.

    The thing that really got me out of the business, though, was when I told a staffer who had waited five days to call me and ask about a young troop that the hero had died. He was a great kid with a lovely young wife whom I’d met on Thanksgiving when I was passing out pogie bait. It broke my heart that he’d died. Just thinking about his wife and their new baby, I just lost it on the phone with the tardy staffer. So I stopped doing it for completely selfish reasons.

    So where these pompous, arrogant congressmen all of this time? If they’d been REALLY worried about their constituents, they’d have already known about conditions in Building 18. They shouldn’t have had to wait to read it in the Post.Â

    UPDATE: Bob Dole and Donna Shalala have been chosen to head a presidential commission on veterans’ health care. Bob Dole I understand – he’s spent years in the vet health system. But what the hell is Shalala doing there. Other than teach at college, all she’s ever been is a shill for Clinton Administration. I guess she’ll play the Jamie Gorelick and deflect criticism from the Clinton Administration so like all other “bi-partisan commissions” this one will be useless, too.

  • Washington Post just won’t let it go

    Yeah, OK, we get it already, WaPo. After being bombarded for a week now with stories ABOUT ONE FRIGGIN’ BUILDING at Walter Reed, Washington Post is adjusting fire and assaulting the entire veterans care systemin an article entited “It Is Just Not Walter Reed“;

    “It is just not Walter Reed,” Oliva slowly tapped out on his keyboard at 4:23 in the afternoon on Friday. “The VA hospitals are not good either except for the staff who work so hard. It brings tears to my eyes when I see my brothers and sisters having to deal with these conditions. I am 70 years old, some say older than dirt but when I am with my brothers and sisters we become one and are made whole again.”

    Firstly, I’d like to say that it’s certainly not difficult to find a soldier who’ll bitch to the press about anything. In fact, we used to say that if the troops quit bitching, it’s time to worry.

    Secondly, where was the damn Washington Post 13 years ago? Do they honestly believe that conditions in Veterans care facilities just got bad on January 20th, 2001? Where were they when I complained about 80-year-old patients were left for hours on gurneys in the hallway of the VA hospital in Syracuse, NY shivering from the cold and covered in a thin sheet back in 1994? 

    Where was the Washington Post when I was in the VA hospital in Washington DC back in 2000 and wasn’t fed for more three days – despite my constant harangue? I’ve been in VA facilities since then and conditions have improved immeasurably – despite the fact that President Bush’s Administration has increased the number of eligible veterans 6-fold!

    There are still problems (mostly because of the drama-queen administrators – like the idiot “patient advocate” at the DC hospital who I swear sounds and looks like a man, but overacts as well as any New Orleans whore on her way to jail) but it’s a damn-sight better than it has been before President Bush. The only way the DC hospital will get better is to fire those morons so deeply entrenched in their jobs that they’ll never fear being fired. But that’s true of any beaurocratic organization – especially on inside the Beltway.

    WaPo also has a companion story about homeless veterans. But where the Hell were they just two months ago when the DC VA Medical Center flung their doors open to more than three hundred local homeless veterans for their annual Winterhaven event? Go ahead and “google” Winterhaven on Washington Post’s website – no results found. “Google” the word veterans and you get five pages of Walter Reed stories.

    So where have you been, WaPo? If you had given a tiny rat’s ass before, you’d have something to compare current conditions with. But since you haven’t bothered before, your credibility (those few tattered shreds remaining) is shot to Hell.

  • Secretary of the Army; comparison

    With nearly every news show and news paper focusing on the resignation of the Army Secretary Francis Harvey over the Walter Reed disgrace, I began wondering how the same media covered Bill Clinton’s first choice for the Secretary of the Army, John Shannon;

    THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

    Washington – The Army’s acting secretary, John Shannon, has been charged with shoplifting a woman’s blouse and skirt at a post exchange near the Pentagon, the Army said yesterday.

    The incident occurred Thursday at the Army PX at Ft. Myer, Va., said Army spokesman Col. Steve Rausch. A store detective apprehended Shannon for allegedly shoplifting a woman’s blouse and skirt, the spokesman said.

    Shannon, 59, was charged with misdemeanor theft of government property, an offense that carries a maximum penalty of 1 year in prison and a $100,000 fine, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Chesnut, a federal prosecutor in Alexandria, Va.

    Four one-line paragraphs.

    And the New York Times;

    August 28, 1993, Saturday
    By ERIC SCHMITT, (Special to The New York Times); National Desk
    Late Edition – Final, Section 1, Page 6, Column 1, 371 words

    The Acting Secretary of the Army, John W. Shannon, was placed on administrative leave today after being accused of shoplifting, the Army said. Mr. Shannon was accused of shoplifting a skirt and blouse valued at about $30 from the Army post exchange at Fort Myer, Va., on Thursday….

    Page 6, 371 words. A little different than this story in yesterday’s Times which is two .html pages long. And not a word in the Washington Post’s archives about the 1993 incident.

    Seems to me that an Army Secretary who shoplifts has more personal deficiencies than one who doesn’t personally inspect every building the Army owns. And, in case anyone is wondering what happened to John Shannon, the Clinton Administration kept him on the Pentagon payroll for eight years as a paid consultant.