“When Johnny comes marching home again,

Hurrah! Hurrah!

We'll give him a hearty welcome then,

Hurrah! Hurrah!”

Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore,

When Johnny Comes Marching Home

It’s Been the Place to Heal

For nearly 100 years

For Our Presidents

For Our Soldiers

And For Our Veterans

But Now

The Crown Jewel of Military Medical Care

Will Be Closed

In an Effort to Save Money

As a Veteran

I Would Say

That a Time of War

Especially a Time of War

In Which Thousands of Our Soldiers

Are Being Severely Wounded

And Are In Need

Of The Best Available Medical Care

Is Not the Time

To Worry About Saving Money

In a blow to our soldiers and veterans, the base closing commission voted on Thursday to shut down the Army's very historic and very prestigious Walter Reed Army Hospital.

This nine-member panel has endorsed much of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's plan to streamline support services across the Army, Navy, and Air Force.

Rumsfeld and the Defense Department are trying to achieve what they call ‘jointness' – in which the armed services combine their services - to save money.

And part of this money saving effort is closing historic Walter Reed - the crown jewel of U.S. military hospitals - and moving its services across town to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.

The commission says that although medical care at Walter Reed, which has treated presidents and foreign leaders, as well as thousands of our soldiers and veterans, is still considered first-rate, the facility is showing its age.

In May, the Defense Department began proposing closing or consolidating a record 62 major military bases and 775 smaller installations in an effort to save $48.8 billion over the next 20 years.

The Historic Walter Reed Army Medical Center first opened its doors in 1909. President Eisenhower, former Secretary of State George Marshall, General Douglas MacArthur, and President Ronald Reagan are among the dignitaries treated there.

And today, Walter Reed treats over 16,000 soldier and veterans per year, and over 4,000 soldiers and veterans have received extensive medical treatment at Walter Reed since the start of the Iraq conflict in May 2003.

Walter Reed Medical Center is named for the Army surgeon whose discovery that mosquitoes caused yellow fever led to a cure for the disease, and it is the Army's largest health-care facility.

The hospital employs 600 full-time physicians and performs 650 soldier and veteran surgeries a month. It also houses about 200 soldier and veteran in-patients at any given time.

“The willingness with which our young people

Are likely to serve in any war,

No matter how justified,

Shall be directly proportional

To how they perceive how the veterans

Of earlier wars were treated and appreciated

By their nation.”

George Washington