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Problems detailed at Walter Reed

WASHINGTON, Feb. 17 (UPI) -- Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the best known U.S. military medical facility, is beset with problems affecting medical care, the Washington Post reported.

In a story based on four months of reporting, the newspaper described one building as having black mold, rodent droppings, dead cockroaches and cheap mattresses. The building has housed hundreds of soldiers maimed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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The hospital is "a place of scrubbed-down order and daily miracles," the Post reported. But what it called "the Other Walter Reed" is a bureaucratic "battlefield," not unlike the battlefields U.S. military personnel engaged in overseas. Patients and their families have to deal with disengaged clerks and overworked case workers.

"We've done our duty. We fought the war. We came home wounded. Fine," said Marine Sgt. Ryan Groves, 26, an amputee who was at Walter Reed for 16 months. "We don't know what to do. The people who are supposed to know don't have the answers. It's a nonstop process of stalling."

Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman, commander at Walter Reed, told the Post the facility has taken steps to improve conditions. He also said Walter Reed is preparing for "potentially a lot more" casualties following a planned 21,500 increase in troops in Iraq.

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