Walter Reed: How the Hell did this happen? - Part 1
If you ask this question, you will no doubt get a variety of answers varying from, "...it's a leadership issue..." to "...it's a communications breakdown..." to "...it's because of all the privatization." These are only a few of the answers I've been given. I've talked about the problems at Walter Reed - Building 18, in particular - to friends on active duty, retired officers, retired enlisted personnel, doctors, nurses, private sector hospital workers with no relation to these events, and civilians of many descriptions. Most shook their heads and uttered one of the reasons I mentioned. Some yelled angrily that it - the problem - starts with President Bush, or with former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld.
They're wrong. Let me say that again: They - are - wrong.
What created the circumstances that allowed the conditions in Building 18 to exist, and persist, is far worse and much bigger than issues of leadership, communication, and privatization combined. That’s not to say that these three points haven't played their part - they have. But, they’re only parts...and rationalizations.
And so we start with the finger- pointing. There are so many fingers pointing right now we could blind half the population of D.C.! Soon, there will be investigations by the military, the media and the administration. Careers will be ruined, reputations shredded, lives destroyed and lawsuits filed, as we once again trot out our public-outrage-dog-and-pony show that such scandals have become.
The chopping block will shortly be overflowing with the rolling heads of military leaders. No doubt the heads of many civilian leaders will be added to the pile soon. Next, the private companies involved will get canned and their contracts will go out to bid again. Meanwhile, the public watches the nightly news crews show us the transformation of Building 18 in a matter of days; we just slap on a little paint, a little shine, a new framed motivational poster here and there, and voila! all better.
When the dust finally settles and the investigations are over, what will be the outcome? I'll take a guess: A few members of Congress (who didn't get their knuckles publicly whacked) will float a bill about this...maybe form a new committee. The DoD, now slightly chastened, will 're-visit the process' and wisdom of privatizing (some) services...there will be new sensitivity training too, of course. And there will be an Emmy or two - maybe even a Pulitzer - somewhere in the mix. Everyone involved will genuinely believe they’ve done what they should to resolve this, the public will be satisfied, and within a few months, maybe a year, this will fade from the collective conscience of America.
But, what caused it to happen in the first place will remain. If there is a single word to describe this problem, it escapes me. There probably is, but I just can’t think of it. Maybe I can start by asking some of the same questions the reporters are asking, then work backwards. Building 18 is only the latest example to demonstrate the problem, but it’s a good one, so here goes...
The most obvious question that’s been asked is: Who’s fault is Building 18? So far, the answer has been pretty predictable – unfortunately – as we do what we usually do; when the team fucks up, we fire the coach. This has been the management solution of choice for many years now, highly favored by lousy managers who want to look tough. It also erroneously backs up the ‘it’s a problem of leadership’ buzz phrase with a bit of circular logic; if the leader was doing his job leading, the problem wouldn’t have happened, and if the problem happened then the leader wasn’t doing his job. It’s this bit of bad logic that gets us to the commander in charge of Walter Reed, Maj. General Weightman, being relieved. Now, as I understand it, Weightman had been there less than six months, and had, at one point last fall, asked for additional personnel and funds to combat shortfalls in skilled staff.
The next leader to be relieved is the Secretary of the Army who, after relieving Weightman, made one of the single stupidest management decisions I’ve ever seen...appoints the former commander, for several years, of Walter Reed as interim commander. Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley. This is the general who knew about the problems in Building 18 for several years before Weightman came along, and did nothing about it. In the case of Secretary Harvey , firing the coach was the right decision. Normally I wouldn’t say that, but his decision to replace Weightman with Kiley was so lacking in good judgement there really is no way to excuse it.
In the case of Maj. Gen. Weightman however, it was possibly the wrong decision – unless he’s demonstrated a pattern of making bad decisions – which no one has said is the case. That doesn’t mean he isn’t accountable for this mess, he is. It only means he isn’t alone.
So if both Weightman and Harvey should be fired, why did I imply that firing the coach was the wrong answer? Because no one has fired the team!
While I’m sure some lower level personnel will be fired/relieved, I’ll guarantee you it won’t go nearly far enough. The right answer is to fire everyone who saw, knew about, or heard about the condition of Building 18 and did nothing, from the janitor all the way up the line, including the patients housed there who were conscious enough to be able to yell their heads off until someone heard them and did something corrective.
Well what about the people who complained, and the ones who wrote memos to their representatives or their CO’s, you ask? Yep. Them too. Why? Because no one followed up and solved the immediate problems of the mold, rats, etc.
Just so we don’t confuse things...despite what you hear in the news about all of this, what went wrong in that building hasn’t got a damn thing to do with the Armed Services, the Troops, Walter Reed, leadership issues or accountability, but it has everything to do with responsibility, ethics and strength of character – of all of us.
No responsible human being could have seen the mold on those walls and walked away. No responsible, ethical, human being could have left their spouse, child, sibling, or buddy to recover from harm under such conditions. When I said this to those I’ve talked with this past week, I was met with excuse after excuse after justification after rationalization; They’re understaffed. It was only a few rooms in a big building. Everything’s been privatized – it’s Rumsfeld’s fault. It’s Bush’s fault. It’s the Army’s fault. It’s the building location’s fault – you have to cross traffic – it’s too hard to get there. No one used the building until recently...and many more increasingly absurd.
When the excuses ran dry, what was left was the following question: What more could anyone have done beyond reporting the problem and complaining? Well, let’s see, here’s a thought: go get a bucket, a sponge, a pair of gloves and a gallon of bleach and clean the fucking wall! That, at least, would have been a step in the right direction.
When you posses the ability to do what’s right, you also have the responsibility (obligation) to do what’s right. That doesn’t end until the problem is solved. Lodging a complaint solved neither the immediate hazards, nor the larger problems of our societal lack of ethics, responsibility and character.
That brings us to what caused the problems at Walter Reed – or at least, four of the major parts of the cause. Being responsible, ethical and having the strength of character to do what’s right regardless of the cost, are concepts so lacking in our society that we are in serious jeopardy of destroying ourselves sooner rather than later. Add in rampant, pervasive, selfishness for the fourth part of this problem. How we handle all of this now and in the near future will determine the survival of our culture, our country, and quite possibly our species.
Part 2 - "Where The Buck Starts" – coming soon
UPDATE: Thank you for your comments. I really do appreciate them.
I'd also like to clarify something; when you read this, please remember it isn't about Walter Reed, Building 18, or cleaning mold - these are the symptons.
It isn't about a lack of leadership in the military, downsizing, out-sourcing jobs to the private sector, finger-pointing, Democrat vs. Republican partisanship, or even President Bush. Those are the rationalizations - however genuinely believed - of why the problems at Walter Reed happened.
It's about responsibility, strength of character and ethics, and rampant self-centered behaviour.
That no one took the miniscule amount of responsibility required to even wash some mold off a wall, or lay out some rat traps, is a measure of how far our cultural values have slipped. No one should have had to think about it - it should have been an automatic response; second nature. There was a time, not too many decades ago, when it was.