Military bids goodbye to Walter Reed hospital

July 24, 2011|By Kimberly Hefling, Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the Army’s flagship hospital where privates to presidents have gone for care, is closing its doors after more than a century.

Hundreds of thousands of the nation’s war wounded from World War I to today have received treatment at Walter Reed, including 18,000 troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

President Eisenhower died there. So did Generals John J. Pershing and Douglas MacArthur. Through the use of medical diplomacy, the center also has tended to foreign leaders.

The hospital, which opened in 1909, was scarred by a 2007 scandal about substandard living conditions for wounded troops in outpatient care and the red tape they faced. It led to improved care for the wounded, at Walter Reed and throughout the military. By then, however, plans were moving forward to close Walter Reed’s campus.

Two years earlier, a government commission, noting that Walter Reed was showing its age, voted to close the facility and consolidate its operations with the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., and a hospital at Fort Belvoir, Va., to save money.

Former and current patients and staff members will say goodbye at a ceremony Wednesday on the parade grounds in front of the main hospital complex. Most of the moving will occur in August. On Sept. 15, the Army hands over the campus to the new tenants: the State Department and the District of Columbia. The buildings deemed national historic landmarks will be preserved; others probably will be torn down. The city is expected to develop its section for retail and other uses.

“For many of the staff members, even though they know that this is the future of the military health system, in a way, it’s still like losing your favorite uncle,’’ said Colonel Norvell Coots, commander of the Walter Reed Health Care System. “And so there is a certain amount of mourning that is going on, and it is an emotional time.’’

The new facility will be called the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. It will consolidate many of Walter Reed’s current offerings with the Navy hospital.

“Frankly, I will say it’s with a heavy heart that Walter Reed closes. I don’t know. I know that there was a process for that decision, but we’ve lost a great, important part of history,’’ said Susan Eisenhower, granddaughter of the former president.

There are countless pieces of history throughout the campus.

At the rose garden, some nurses from the Vietnam War era were said to have married their patients. The memorial chapel is where President Truman went for his first church service after taking office, following a visit with Pershing, who lived in a suite at Walter Reed for several years, said John Pierce, historian for the Walter Reed Society.