StormWarning’s Counterterrorism

This is about the War on Terrorism and the men and women who have been fighting it for all of us.  This is about the men and women who have survived the battles and been seriously injured.  This is about the privately funded rehabilitation hospital that is being built in San Antonio Texas near Brooke Army Medical Center.  ["One issue may be the number of wounded returning from America's two ongoing wars. “I don’t think anybody in the world expected the numbers of wounded coming back [from Afghanistan and Iraq],” says Bill White, the Intrepid Fund’s president. “In Vietnam, they would have died. And it’s wonderful that they’re alive, but they’ve survived catastrophic injuries that require them to get special help to rehabilitate.” According to U.S Senate research, the amputation rate has doubled from previous wars to 6 percent of those injured. Since 2000, the demand for prosthetic services has increased more than 30 percent, and is now funded at $1 billion annually by the Department of Veterans Affairs."] 

Private Rx for Rehab
A rehabilitation center for amputees and other wounded soldiers that’s rising near Brooke Army Medical Center comes with a virtual-reality roller coaster, a $37 million price tag and a question: Why isn’t the federal government paying for any of it?

Instead, the four-story building is being paid for entirely by private donations, prompting some to ask why the government isn’t meeting its obligations to those wounded in the war in Iraq — a war that has returned home amputees at twice the rate of Vietnam.

When it opens at Fort Sam Houston in a year, the Center for the Intrepid will provide what may be the best rehabilitative care medicine can offer to troops who have lost limbs or suffered severe burns, blindness and head injuries on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Supporters see the project led by millionaire New York real estate developer Arnold Fisher as a way to give back to the troops. They say it will be an architectural and medical gem in Fort Sam’s crown, equal to the world’s finest rehab centers.

But retired combat commanders, veterans and even some Intrepid center donors ask why Washington has left the center’s construction to a private charity.

"I think it’s the government’s responsibility," American Legion National  Commander Thomas L. Bock said…[more]

Center for the Intrepid to Provide Rehabilitation and Training for Disabled Military Personnel
July 28, 2005) Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Nicholson, Senator John McCain (R-AZ), Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), Senator John Warner (R-VA) and Surgeon General of the Army Lieutenant General Kevin C. Kiley today joined Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense C.W. Bill Young (R-FL) and representatives of the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund (IFHF) to announce a public-private partnership to build the Center for the Intrepid, a state-of-the-art rehabilitation and advance training skills facility at the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas. The announcement took place in the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, D.C.

The Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting the men and women of the United States Armed Forces and their families.

“We are committed to building the $30 million Center for the Intrepid as quickly as possible to provide for the critical needs of America’s wounded and disabled military personnel,” said Arnold Fisher, Honorary Chairman of the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund…[more]

BAMC to get $30 million rehab center

For anyone who listens to or watched Don Imus on "IMUS in the Morning" there rages a debate regarding why such a facility should be privately funded, instead of being supported by the federal government.

Who’s Responsible?
A new rehab center for injured U.S. soldiers sparks a controversy over health care for veterans
…But should such an institution really be funded by private sources? Inevitably, organizations like Intrepid have raised questions about whether the Bush administration—committed to two wars—is too stretched to properly take care of returning veterans. "It’s surprising to us that there needs to be a facility that’s privately funded, and we hope that the Congress and the Bush administration will recognize that we need to meet these goals of the severely injured," says Peter Gayton, director of veterans affairs and rehabilitation at the American Legion. “The fact that the Intrepid Center needs to exist shows that the VA is not receiving enough funding."

The debate is being fueled by syndicated radio host Don Imus, who has donated $250,000 and has made raising money for the fund a regular feature on his morning show. On Friday he told listeners he doesn’t know why "the government wouldn’t just simply pay for [the center], considering the extraordinary amount of money they spend on … this idiotic war." And later said "We have a tradition in this country, well, going back to the Civil War, in which we send off young people to fight these wars. Stuff happens to them. They lose their arms and legs. And we just discard them. You know, like they are iPods of old telephones or something."…[more]

For the lunatics who will dwell on Imus’ perspective and characterization of the war, among the real issues are:

1. why this facility isn’t being built by federal funds
2. why major corporations involved in the war aren’t funding it from profits

http://fallenheroesfund.org/fallenheroes/index.php

Current Affairs, Federal Policy, Iraq