EDITORIAL: ARMY IS RESPONDING TO THE FIGHT AT HOME
San Antonio Express-News
www.express-news.com
January 18, 2008 - It is one thing when our soldiers face adversity on the battlefield.
But when they come home and face another enemy - this one in the form of a large, uncaring bureaucracy - the injustice is harder to stomach.
Early last year, the Washington Post ran a series of articles on the deplorable conditions, including a rodent-infested residence, at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
The reports shocked the nation, and the outrage spurred the Army to act.
In a compelling article in the Express-News, veteran military writer Sig Christenson recently documented how the Army has responded to the scandal - a response highlighted by the creation of Warrior Transition units at 35 posts throughout the nation, including San Antonio's Fort Sam Houston.
The units, backed by officials from the National Guard and the Veterans Administration, put a personal touch on care for the wounded, thus shrinking the bureaucracy to a more manageable - and human - level.
Maj. Steven Gventer, the first commander for the Warrior Transition company at Walter Reed, said, "It's a job that entails just about anything and everything for that soldier, the warrior in transition, to focus on his mission, which is to heal."
Gventer, a 1988 graduate of Clark High School, was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade in Iraq. And, whatever else his résumé may include, that alone makes him a valuable member of this project - someone who has experienced what the wounded soldiers are experiencing, someone who understands their plight. He is one of them.
"They make sure that you are over here, make sure you're OK, or that I'm alive," Army Sgt. Lilina Benning, who lost most of her left foot during a rocket attack in Iraq, told Christenson following a workout at the Center for the Intrepid at Fort Sam Houston.
The problems at Walter Reed - and other medical facilities throughout the country - were years in the making, and it may take years to resolve them, but programs such as the Warrior Brigade units show the Army is responding with the sensitivity our soldiers deserved from the start.