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Geren: Equip the Guard, fix Walter Reed

Acting Army Secretary Pete Geren began his testimony Wednesday before the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee by punching through what he knew everyone wanted to hear first: a situation report on Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

“We did not live up to our obligation to the soldiers and have been taking steps every day to make corrections,” said Geren, a former congressman who testified Wednesday for the first time in his official capacity as acting secretary.

The problems, he said, lie in two distinct areas – fixing the facilities for medical holdover soldiers and the treatment they receive, and taking action on correcting any other deficiencies in the Army’s broader medical system.

Geren took over as secretary on March 9 following the resignation of Francis Harvey who was forced to step down amid the revelations that soldiers in medical hold at Walter Reed faced intolerable delays and poor living conditions.

Wednesday’s testimony was part of a series of hearings on the proposed 2008 Army budget of $130 billion.

Geren also testified Wednesday on his intention to see that the National Guard is equipped on par with the active component.

“We’re one Army and this budget puts our money where our mouth is,” he said. Geren told lawmakers that over the next five years the Army will spend $38 billion on equipment for the Guard. He said that will include earmarking 40 percent of the helicopters purchased during that time for the Guard.

Geren and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker each emphatically pointed to the consequences of failing to get their supplemental funding by the end of April.

“If we don’t have it by the end of April we are going to have start pulling levers, making adjustments and reprogramming plans,” Geren said.

He noted that soldiers and family members at Walter Reed next week will be able to tap into a toll-free hotline to report any problems. Meanwhile, all soldiers who were living in Building 18, a rundown training barracks across the street from the Walter Reed hospital where many of the soldiers complained of squalid living conditions, have been moved out while repairs, including a new roof, are being made.

The most important changes have been in leadership, he said, including a new deputy commanding general position appointed to Brig. Gen. Michael Tucker, who Geren described as his “bureaucracy buster.”

“I am confident he is going to do what it takes to get soldiers what they need,” Geren told the panel.