Inclusion Daily Express -- Durbin Recommends Duckworth For Military Hospital Commission

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Durbin Recommends Duckworth For Military Hospital Commission
By Dave Reynolds, Inclusion Daily Express
March 8, 2007

WASHINGTON, DC--President George W. Bush has appointed former Senator Bob Dole and former Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala to head up a bipartisan investigation into reports that some wounded soldiers are receiving poor treatment in substandard housing when they return from Afghanistan and Iraq.

While the Washington Post has published a number of stories about conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center -- including rooms infested with mold, cockroaches and mice -- Dole and Shalala said they intend their probe to also look at how soldiers are being treated in other military hospitals.

The Department of Defense has come under fire in the past couple of weeks for failing to anticipate the number of soldiers that would be wounded and the types of wounds they would sustain, particularly the high rates of traumatic brain injuries.

Dole, who ran against Bill Clinton in the 1996 presidential election, lost much of the use of his right hand during combat in World War II. After his injury, he received medical care in a U.S. Army hospital in Michigan.

U.S. Senator Dick Durbin has asked Bush to appoint fellow Illinoisan Major Tammy Duckworth to the panel. Duckworth lost both legs when a helicopter she was co-piloting in Iraq was shot down. She spent much of her recovery time at Walter Reed.

"If not me, I think someone who's been a patient as a result of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq should be on the commission," Duckworth told the Daily Herald.

Duckworth, who nearly won her campaign for a U.S. House of Representatives seat for the sixth district of Illinois last November, typically does not hide her prosthetic legs during public appearances.

Related:
"New task for Duckworth? Durbin urges president to put veteran on panel examining military hospitals" (Daily Herald)
http://www.inclusiondaily.com/news/07/red/0308a.htm
"Dole vows to do his best for wounded soldiers" (News & Observer)
http://www.newsobserver.com/110/story/550793.html
"'Cost of war' too much for Walter Reed, vet says" (Chicago Tribune)
http://www.inclusiondaily.com/news/07/red/0308b.htm
"Disabilities And The 'War On Terror'" (Inclusion Daily Express Archives)
http://www.inclusiondaily.com/news/war.htm

Copyright © 2007 Inonit Publishing
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