Walter Reed Army General Hospital.
The picture above, taken when Tim and I visited D.C. a few weeks ago, is not the current hospital but the original Georgian-style facility. The hospital had long been a leader for advancements in military medicine, and its location on Georgia Avenue helped serve ailing presidents and generals for nearly a century.
The hospital will celebrate its centennial anniversary in May. Calvin Coolidge’s young son died at Walter Reed during his presidency. During World War II, wounded soldiers returning home were greeted with parades and star-studded performances on base. Eisenhower passed away there. The current medical center was built in the 1970s; the Vietnam years, unsurprisingly, was a dark period for the hospital that lasted well into the eighties. Today, the facility serves of recovering veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and if there is only one silver lining for going to war, it is the advancements made in prosthetic and combat medical care. It’s fascinating, largely untold history — every patient, nurse, soldier and family member has his or her experience with war and convalescence.
Warren Harding and wounded soldier at Walter Reed, 1921 (image via)
I was finishing my junior year of college in April 2005 when Tim, on deployment in Iraq, was seriously wounded when his Humvee was attacked by a suicide driver. His right leg was amputated below the knee. Every day, for more than a year, he endured hours of physical therapy. The visual impact of the injuries I saw — amputations, burns, brain trauma – was terrifying at first, as my limited journalism background did not prepare me for the overwhelming experience. I was immediately aware on some level that I was witnessing something very important, with unrestricted access to the war wounded that social scientists only dream about.
Combat amputees are powerful visual image of the cost of America’s actions in the Middle East, the personification of the price of war. Documentaries have focused on the lives of some of Walter Reed’s patients, and modern advancements in media technology make capturing the stories of service members from these wars more realistic than ever before, although such a personal connection is much rarer.
I’ve always thought about sharing the experience, researching and drafting book proposals, but everything changed seven months after we left Walter Reed following Tim’s medical retirement. The Washington Post’s exposé revealed that recovering wounded troops were living in squalid housing conditions, navigating a confusing bureaucratic maze to receive medical treatment and retirement from military service. The subsequent controversy ignited national outrage, prompting a Congressional investigation and the resignations of the hospital’s commanding leaders. We had returned to Western Pennsylvania and I was finishing my last semester of college when the story became an epic governmental public-relations disaster, leaving no doubt that the hospital would close and relocate to Bethesda. The series was just as decisively declared a journalistic triumph for reporters Anne Hull, Dana Priest and the Post. As an aspiring writer and journalist, and especially as the wife of an injured veteran, I admired their reporting as I watched immediate action taken as a result of their investigative series.
I guess I’m working toward some piece narrative nonfiction about the history of the hospital and my own account of our time there. The historian of the Walter Reed Society has been kind enough to share some of its earliest documents and photographs with me. For a century, Walter Reed brought together the nation’s wounded and made tremendous advancements in combat recovery and military medicine, regarded in its prime by politicians and diplomats as the most prestigious of places to heal. I feel that the hospital was just another casualty of this war, a disservice to its past. The base is scheduled to close in 2011, and the legacy of this historic institution will be largely forgotten.
Walter Reed Army General Hospital.
The picture above, taken when Tim and I visited D.C. a few weeks ago, is not the current hospital but the original Georgian-style facility. The hospital had long been a leader for advancements in military medicine, and its location on Georgia Avenue helped serve ailing presidents and generals for nearly a century.
The hospital will celebrate its centennial anniversary in May. Calvin Coolidge’s young son died at Walter Reed during his presidency. During World War II, wounded soldiers returning home were greeted with parades and star-studded performances on base. Eisenhower passed away there. The current medical center was built in the 1970s; the Vietnam years, unsurprisingly, was a dark period for the hospital that lasted well into the eighties. Today, the facility serves of recovering veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and if there is only one silver lining for going to war, it is the advancements made in prosthetic and combat medical care. It’s fascinating, largely untold history — every patient, nurse, soldier and family member has his or her experience with war and convalescence.
Warren Harding and wounded soldier at Walter Reed, 1921 (image via)
I was finishing my junior year of college in April 2005 when Tim, on deployment in Iraq, was seriously wounded when his Humvee was attacked by a suicide driver. His right leg was amputated below the knee. Every day, for more than a year, he endured hours of physical therapy. The visual impact of the injuries I saw — amputations, burns, brain trauma – was terrifying at first, as my limited journalism background did not prepare me for the overwhelming experience. I was immediately aware on some level that I was witnessing something very important, with unrestricted access to the war wounded that social scientists only dream about.
Combat amputees are powerful visual image of the cost of America’s actions in the Middle East, the personification of the price of war. Documentaries have focused on the lives of some of Walter Reed’s patients, and modern advancements in media technology make capturing the stories of service members from these wars more realistic than ever before, although such a personal connection is much rarer.
I’ve always thought about sharing the experience, researching and drafting book proposals, but everything changed seven months after we left Walter Reed following Tim’s medical retirement. The Washington Post’s exposé revealed that recovering wounded troops were living in squalid housing conditions, navigating a confusing bureaucratic maze to receive medical treatment and retirement from military service. The subsequent controversy ignited national outrage, prompting a Congressional investigation and the resignations of the hospital’s commanding leaders. We had returned to Western Pennsylvania and I was finishing my last semester of college when the story became an epic governmental public-relations disaster, leaving no doubt that the hospital would close and relocate to Bethesda. The series was just as decisively declared a journalistic triumph for reporters Anne Hull, Dana Priest and the Post. As an aspiring writer and journalist, and especially as the wife of an injured veteran, I admired their reporting as I watched immediate action taken as a result of their investigative series.
I guess I’m working toward some piece narrative nonfiction about the history of the hospital and my own account of our time there. The historian of the Walter Reed Society has been kind enough to share some of its earliest documents and photographs with me. For a century, Walter Reed brought together the nation’s wounded and made tremendous advancements in combat recovery and military medicine, regarded in its prime by politicians and diplomats as the most prestigious of places to heal. I feel that the hospital was just another casualty of this war, a disservice to its past. The base is scheduled to close in 2011, and the legacy of this historic institution will be largely forgotten.
