How can Obama do anything “quietly”? Regardless, the gesture was admirable.

Imagine if the tables were turned, and John McCain had visited Walter Reed. His handlers would have sent out fliers last week advertising the planned trip. The entire press club not only would have been alerted, but also urged to show up with plenty of film on hand.

Obama quietly visits wounded vets at Walter Reed

WASHINGTON (AP) — Barack Obama stopped by Walter Reed Army Medical Center Saturday to visit wounded war veterans, a group that he has said endures substandard care under the Bush administration.

The presumed Democratic nominee, who was in Washington to speak to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, slipped into the facility shortly after 9 a.m. without stopping to speak to the small group of reporters who follow him. The visit wasn’t on his public schedule.

I can’t tell you how many well meaning emails I’ve received asking me to send cards to “Any Wounded Soldier” at Walter Reed. Just so you know……they will never be received.

This is weird……….

Boxes of documents containing personal information from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research were supposed to be shredded but instead turned up last week in a trash bin, police said.

A resident of a suburban Washington neighborhood near the Army medical research’s campus found the boxes Friday and alerted Montgomery County police.

The files were research study records, said Cynthia Vaughn, a public affairs officer for the U.S. Army Medical Command. An investigation was under way to determine precisely what information they held and why they appeared off base, Vaughn said Monday. Police said most were from the late 1990s and likely were placed in the bin on the same day they were discovered.

The records were supposed to be shredded by a Walter Reed research division employee.

The Silver Spring-based institute is the Pentagon’s largest biomedical research laboratory and is not directly affiliated with the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in nearby Washington. Researchers at the facility work on issues such as tropical diseases and post traumatic stress disorder.

More at FoxNews

By ROBERT BURNS
AP Military Writer

WASHINGTON - Turns out the trouble at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the focus of a firestorm of criticism over poor treatment of wounded war veterans, reached into the mailroom.

The Army said Friday that it has opened an investigation into the recent discovery of 4,500 letters and parcels - some dating to May 2006 - at Walter Reed that were never delivered to soldiers.

And it fired the contract employee who ran the mailroom.

In an indication of the Army’s sensitivity to problems at Walter Reed, whose reputation as the crown jewel in the Army medical system was tarnished by the disclosures of poor treatment of soldiers earlier this year, officials put out a written statement late Friday afternoon detailing the problem with the mail.

Maj. Gen. Eric Schoomaker, commander of Walter Reed, said he ordered a team of 20 to 40 soldiers and civilians to launch an around-the-clock operation to screen, survey and forward all the letters and parcels. Items addressed to soldiers still at Walter Reed were being hand-delivered Friday night, he said.

“This delay is completely and absolutely unsatisfactory,” Schoomaker said.

He took over at Walter Reed after the Army fired his predecessor, Maj. Gen. George Weightman, in the wake of Washington Post stories that spelled out substandard living conditions and excessive red tape for soldiers at Walter Reed.

Army Secretary Francis Harvey also was fired in the days following the disclosures.

The acting Army surgeon general, Maj. Gen. Gale Pollock, said there have not been any complaints about delayed mail delivery at other Army medical centers. Even so, she said she ordered an immediate review and inspections of mail room procedures and supervisory controls at other medical centers.

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