Leslie Taylor

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I shook my head, watching the parade of politicians rush to the gates of Walter Reed Army Medical Center after The Washington Post peeled back the layers and uncovered that wounded troops were living in deteriorating conditions.

From ages 12 to 16, I received medical care at Walter Reed. As a military dependent, Walter Reed was where I had regular wellness checkups, impacted wisdom teeth cut from my gums, tonsils removed.

I remember Walter Reed as a stately, though aging, place. The quality of care was never an issue, but physically, the medical center always appeared lacking.

Not until I aged out of dependent care did I discover that in the civilian world, there existed medical care different from that afforded soldiers, their families and military retirees.

At least at Walter Reed.

Reading The Post's front-page investigative piece, I was troubled to learn of conditions in which the war wounded were living at the Army's top medical facility. The report zeroed in on Building 18, an old lodge a short distance from the medical center's Georgia Avenue entrance.

But I wasn't altogether shocked. Of mouse droppings and peeling wallpaper and mold and cockroaches? Yes. But of the deteriorating conditions? No.

And I wondered: Wasn't anyone watching? Didn't anyone see what I and I'm sure others, had seen many years before? Had those in power been blinded by too many pristine photo ops?

Dana Priest, one of The Post reporters who wrote the story, said in an MSNBC interview that the story began with a "classic journalism tip." Someone called in with reports of disturbing conditions. Good shoe-leather reporting followed; the story evolved.

Priest, asked why she thought conditions were allowed to reach such a deplorable state, said simply "It was not a priority."

Building 18 was that mysterious structure whose purpose I never quite understood, and that appeared neglected decades ago.

But beyond that, in other corners of the sprawling, now nearly 100-year-old facility were signs of age.

I never had the pleasure of a stay in Walter Reed's new hospital building, which opened in the mid-1970s. My memories of Walter Reed are of recuperating from surgery in a bed tucked in the corner of a cavernous room in the old hospital.

There was no hustle and bustle of nurse activity, no television, no phone with an outside line. There were no other patients in the room, though it was large enough to easily hold three or four more beds.

The conditions were fine, but maybe less than what one would expect at a medical facility that is perceived, as The Post reported, as the "crown jewel of military medicine."

That was a flaw in my expectations, I now realize. Walter Reed is not necessarily a place where one finds care with megadoses of personal attention and the niceties that are commonplace in private care.

Part of Walter Reed's medical mission is to "maintain the Army's fighting strength," a mission that becomes challenging during wartime.

The War on Terror has made that mission much more of a challenge.

That Walter Reed has been ill-prepared to handle a demand that far exceeds its capacity is, as Secretary of the Army Francis Harvey said, "inexcusable."

Was the bar set too high? Were the expectations of wounded troops and their families that Walter Reed would provide good, basic care too great?

Certainly not. Medical care is a primary benefit for those who serve in the military. This country shirks its responsibility to service men and women when it fails to adequately deliver on that pledge.

The wounds opened by The Post story will heal. Walter Reed intends to do what is necessary to reclaim that now-tarnished "crown jewel" title -- if only for the short-term, as the Pentagon several years ago announced plans to close the medical facility by 2011.

Now, with war raging and casualties mounting, adhering to its motto "We Provide Warrior Care" has become more crucial than ever.

Taylor is a member of The Roanoke Times editorial board.