Walter Reed

WASHINGTON -- Congressional Democrats kept up their attacks yesterday on substandard care for injured soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center as they prepared for hearings on the issue this week. "If it's this bad at the outpatient facilities at Walter Reed, how is it in the rest of the country?" Sen. Charles E. Schumer, a New York Democrat, said on ABC's This Week. "Walter Reed is our crown jewel." In a letter sent yesterday to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Schumer called for the creation of an independent commission to examine conditions at all medical facilities treating military personnel and veterans.

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. -- If Building 18 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center represents the nadir of outpatient care for wounded military personnel, the Marine Corps is hoping that a former maternity ward here represents the opposite. At the 25-bed Wounded Warrior Center, opened in August, injured Marines and sailors live mostly in two-person rooms that are freshly painted and furnished. A recreation room and dining room are just down the hall. Medical case managers from the Marine Corps and Veterans Affairs arrive frequently to check on each patient's progress.

Jackie Geyer couldn't stand by when her co-worker's daughter left for Iraq on May 3. It was Lori Tietz's birthday and a week before Mother's Day. "It just didn't sit right with me," said Geyer, who works at Air Inc. in Annapolis. The Severna Park resident soon sent an empty photo album to Navy Lt. Jennifer Tietz, a 2001 Naval Academy graduate, and pledged to send her photos that would lift her spirits. Geyer wrote "Thank you" in bold, black letters on a plain sheet of paper and asked strangers to pose with it for pictures.

Five Below, a national retail chain that markets "trend-right" products priced between $1 and $5, has signed a lease for a store at Crossroads Square in Westminster that will hold a grand opening Friday, Saturday and June 3. The Philadelphia-based chain operates 56 stores in five states. The target demographic of Five Below are teens and pre-teens who are searching for "trend-right" and "value-priced" items and are able to spend their own money. Stores are divided into eight product categories, including candy, crafts, media, now, party, room, sports and style.

MARYLAND Student's death ruled homicide On the same day the state medical examiner ruled that the death of a student at the Bowling Brook Preparatory School was a homicide, the FBI said it is conducting an independent investigation into the incident. pg 1a Third county OKs Verizon TV The final obstacle for cable television competition in Baltimore County was removed last night when the County Council approved a deal with Verizon Communications. The county becomes the third in the Baltimore area with competition between Verizon and Comcast.

WASHINGTON -- An experimental malaria vaccine achieved limited success in a field trial in West Africa, researchers said yesterday, fueling cautious hopes that people can one day be inoculated against one of the planet's most prolific killers.The vaccine briefly reduced malaria cases by almost two-thirds in a group of volunteers in Gambia last year, researchers said. Scientists disclosed the results yesterday at a meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene here."I think it's a great step forward," said Dr. Philip K. Russell of the Center for Immunization Research at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.

Wayne Russell left a Washington hospital yesterday with medicine to treat his infant son. But he had mistakenly been given a potentially deadly dose of morphine -- and he didn't know it until he arrived at his in-laws' house in Pennsylvania, 240 miles away.Warned by doctors at Walter Reed Army Medical Center who knew where the Russells were headed, police in Maryland and Pennsylvania tried to track down the family's blue Isuzu.Authorities broadcast a frantic message saying the child "will surely die" if given a large dose of the drug.

SILVER SPRING - Two dozen historic buildings at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center are in such disrepair that the Pentagon is considering ripping down or selling the structures.The Forest Glen Annex buildings, which served as a women's finishing school from the late 19th century until World War II, go largely unused and are too expensive to maintain, Army officials say.But preservationists blame the Army for the state of the buildings, which have been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1972.

People are stealing the heart and soul of the National Park Seminary. And what vandals aren't claiming, the weather is.Stained-glass windows have been pried from the chapel. The scales have been yanked from an 8-foot-tall statue of Justice. Outside the stately music hall, two-story white pillars are quietly rotting away.Neighbors of the seminary, a 19th-century finishing school for girls in Silver Spring, say there won't be much left by the time the owner -- the Army -- decides what to do with it."

A female recruit whose accusations sparked the Army's burgeoning sexual misconduct scandal said yesterday that she recently tried to kill herself by swallowing 25 anti-depressant pills -- though medical workers who treated her said they found no such evidence.Jessica Bleckley, 18, of Anderson, S.C., said she took Prozac Wednesday in her battalion commander's office bathroom at Aberdeen Proving Ground in a bid to get out of the Army. Bleckley said she was upset after being told to report to Fort Lewis, Wash.

Perhaps no one could have anticipated that the stresses of his job as an Army psychiatrist counseling traumatized veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, coupled with his own conflicted feelings about Islamic terrorism and dread of being deployed to a war zone, would result in Maj. Nidal Hasan standing accused of killing 13 and wounding 38 of his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood Army base in Texas last week. The factors that cause certain men and women to snap under pressure are as unpredictable as they are devastating to the individuals involved and those around them.

The gunshots came out of the blue. An Army psychiatrist, trained to treat soldiers under stress, allegedly opened fire Thursday in a crowded medical building at Fort Hood, Texas. When the assault ended minutes later, the attack had become what is believed to be the largest mass shooting ever to occur on a U.S. military base. Twelve were killed and 31 wounded. Nidal Malik Hasan, a major who had made a career in the military, fired a pair of pistols, one a semiautomatic, shooting and scattering people as they waited to see doctors, according to authorities.

The floors were lacquered and shining, the grass was mowed, and the handicapped-access tracks and ramps in the new, $800,000 Pasadena home were ready for use. Just miles away, in Washington, Sgt. David Battle, a triple amputee from injuries he suffered in Iraq, sat in the small suite he, his wife, Lakeisa, and four children have shared at Walter Reed Army Medical Center for the past year and a half. Their bags were packed. A nonprofit group, Homes for Our Troops, and hundreds of Maryland volunteers had built the home from scratch.

BETHESDA - President Bush turned a spade of dirt to ceremonially launch a major expansion of one of the nation's premier military hospitals yesterday, saying he hoped a new Walter Reed National Military Medical Center "will be the site of many miracles of healing." Flanked by officers, soldiers and civilian military leaders, Bush joined Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Montgomery County and Maryland Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown in dipping a gold-painted shovel into a container of soil in the shadow of the art deco tower that is the centerpiece of the National Naval Medical Center.

WASHINGTON - When President Bush breaks ground today for a new Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland, Phil Alperson may be thinking about how Route 355 is going to handle the thousands of additional staff, patients and visitors the hospital is expected to draw each day. "You cannot increase the personnel ... by one-third, or double the hospital load to nearly 1 million visits to the campus each year, without having a significant impact...

WASHINGTON - The House approved hundreds of millions of dollars yesterday to speed construction of the new Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Bethesda, part of the national base realignment that is expected to bring tens of thousands of jobs to Maryland. The funding was part of the war spending bill approved last night 268-155, which provides $162 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The legislation did not include $75 million that the Senate had approved for commercial fisheries disaster assistance, money that Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, a Maryland Democrat, had sought to assist Chesapeake Bay watermen.

Jackie Geyer couldn't stand by when her co-worker's daughter left for Iraq on May 3. It was Lori Tietz's birthday and a week before Mother's Day. "It just didn't sit right with me," said Geyer, who works at Air Inc. in Annapolis. The Severna Park resident soon sent an empty photo album to Navy Lt. Jennifer Tietz, a 2001 Naval Academy graduate, and pledged to send her photos that would lift her spirits. Geyer wrote "Thank you" in bold, black letters on a plain sheet of paper and asked strangers to pose with it for pictures.

Veterans Day lunch planned Sunday Staff Sgt. Karl G. Taylor Sr. Marine Corps League Detachment 1084 will celebrate Veterans Day by inviting veterans to lunch. The event will be held from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday at the Ellicott Mills Brewing Company in Historic Ellicott City. Veterans from all branches of service are welcome, and guests from Bethesda Naval Hospital, Walter Reed and other hospitals serving veterans will be invited. Spouses and children are also invited. The cost for lunch is $10; the restaurant will donate a portion of the proceeds to the league.

John M. Murray, a decorated Korean War veteran and retired Georgia Pacific Corp. manager, died Oct. 3 of complications from emphysema at his Catonsville home. He was 76. Mr. Murray was born in Baltimore and raised on Ellamont Street in the city's Walbrook neighborhood. He was a graduate of the old St. James School at Eager and Aisquith streets. He was 17 when he enlisted in the Army in 1948, and, while serving as an infantryman at several stateside posts, was division boxing champion.

POINT LOOKOUT STATE PARK -- Standing side by side on the fishing pier, generations met where the Potomac River meets the Chesapeake Bay, some old warriors of Vietnam, Korea and World War II, others with the battles of Iraq still fresh on their minds. Friday's sky and temperature hinted at the autumn to come, and the stiff breezes made fishing lines wiggle and shirtsleeves snap. The outing for veterans and their families was, by turns, recreational, instructional and inspirational. As everyone got acquainted, it was like the merger of a history book and yesterday's front page.