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House Armed Services Committee
Chairman Skelton's Statement--March 08, 2007

"Today, the full committee will review the challenges and obstacles wounded and injured service members face during recovery. This hearing continues the committee's effort to ensure that wounded and injured service members and their families have the support and care that is needed.

"Let me welcome Dr. David Chu, the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness; Dr. William Winkenwerder, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs; General Peter Schoomaker, Chief of Staff of the United States Army, and General Kevin Kiley, the Army Surgeon General. Thank you for coming.

"Gentlemen, we are here today not just because of the recent articles in the Washington Post that highlighted the challenges that wounded and injured soldiers experience at Walter Reed. We are here today because these challenges are being experienced by soldiers, sailors, and Marines across this country. For the last several days, the committee has received phone calls and letters from service members and their families detailing the challenges that they are facing in obtaining health care and navigating the unknown and complex disability process.

"Sadly, the articles in the Post are eerily similar to the articles that first surfaced early in the 108th Congress. Press reports at that time highlighted the challenges that injured reserve component soldiers were facing at Fort Stewart, Georgia and Fort Knox, Kentucky. In response, this committee undertook numerous initiatives to improve the situation. However, it is clear that these continued and persistent problems require closer inspection and may demand a significant and comprehensive overhaul of the process.

"What happened at Walter Reed is greater than just leadership failure in the Army. It is symptomatic of the extensive and complex factors that affect military medicine and, ultimately, our injured and wounded service members and their families. In the last several years the Department and the Services have moved aggressively in converting military medical positions to civilian positions. While it may make fiscal sense, the unintended consequences of these decisions have ultimately reduced access to care for wounded and injured service members and their families.

"Fewer military medical providers mean fewer providers left in military hospitals back home treating injured and wounded service members. It also means that those who do remain continue to face a high and sustained operational tempo-greater deployments and more time away from home. These are individuals whose talents and skills are in great demand in civilian communities. Yet, the Navy, for example, has proposed for fiscal year 2008 to cut an additional 900 medical providers, including 100 doctors that provide needed health care to service members and their families. This is nonsense.

"The Marine Corps is proposing to increase its end strength, the President is pushing forward with a troop increase in Iraq. Yet, it seems that these decisions are being made in isolated bubble and the people who are getting the short end of the stick are our sick, wounded and injured service members. This is unacceptable.

"That is why we are here. These problems, gentlemen, need to be fixed--Period. This is not just a leadership failure in the Services; this is a system-wide failure that desperately needs to be a priority for both the Services and the Department of Defense."