Army vet at Walter Reed: 'I want to leave this place'

March 5, 2007
Army vet at Walter Reed: 'I want to leave this place'

With a US Army veteran declaring "I want to leave this place," a House committee began a hearing this morning at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center on the difficulties that casualties from the Iraq war have experienced in receiving medical care.

In the special hearing's first panel, two veterans and the wife of a third alleged that senior Army officials failed to heed the warnings that they had heard for years about the state of care at the Army's Walter Reed Medical Center. The committee's chair, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), suggested that the problems at the Army Medical Center might be "the tip of the iceberg."

The committee's ranking Republican member, Tom Davis of Virginia, agreed that the problems at Walter Reed were severe.