Wounded Warrior Cafe: Not For The Wounded

[Bailey Guns]

This makes my blood boil.

Wounded Warrior Cafe May Be Closed to Wounded Warriors at Walter Reed (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/08/15/insult-to-injury-wounded-warriors-snubbed-at-walter-reed-dining-hall/)


But in other news, the military will allow more benefits for same-sex married couples. Un-fucking-believeable.

[Aloha_Shooter]

Sounds like a typical bureaucratic decision, probably by a GS-13 or GS-14 who has never actually served and probably never actually visited Walter Reed. They're scrounging for every dollar due to budget reductions and not thinking things through.

[gos]

Has nothing to do with who they choose to serve. They're simply cutting back hours and services.

Smaller government, isn't that what everyone wants?

[3beansalad]

Smaller government yes, as in bureaucrats and their wasteful spending. Smaller government, as in no more FBHO family vacations.

This is f*cking disgrace.

[mtnhack]

Sounds like something else may be going on.

Officials in the Pentagon and at Walter Reed did not respond to questions about why the changes were made, but congressional sources with knowledge of the decision say it was based on concerns that government funds for the warrior meals were being misappropriated. They said that because the cafe is listed as a "self sustaining" business, it is not allowed to receive government subsidies, such as the meal tickets and appropriated funds. So the military decided the cafe could no longer accept the government meal cards.
The families and patients have a slightly different take. Many of them who spoke to Fox News are under the impression that the government doesn't like paying for the higher prices that come with the better food.


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/08/15/insult-to-injury-wounded-warriors-snubbed-at-walter-reed-dining-hall/#ixzz2c3JJ9aog

[Aloha_Shooter]

Yeah, I read that in the story. The issue is commingling of appropriated and non-appropriated funds. The meal tickets are AF while MWR-type snack bars are NAF and supposed to support themselves. The rules for that go back decades and are intended to protect the taxpayer from having the base bowling alley or golf course or NCO club from being a black hole for appropriated funds. However, vouchers using appropriated funds are (or should be) allowable when an appropriate authority determines use of AF facilities is unfeasible. For instance, if I was TDY at a military facility, I was expected to try to stay at the Visiting Officers Quarters (essentially a military-run equivalent of a Super 8) and get meals at the chow hall (and I did when I was active duty). I couldn't just get a voucher to use at Starbuck's because I preferred their coffee. On the other hand, I could (and sometimes did) get a waiver from using the chow hall because my work was being performed at odd hours and/or remote locations that precluded going there in which case I got per diem for the meal(s) I had to get on the economy.

Cutting down on the hours is simply a typical reduction in expenses, especially in a time of financial strain. No longer allowing use of the meal cards at the cafe is a little different. Remember, these rules are written very generically and very broadly and the bureaucrats making decisions are often doing so based on precedents that really don't relate to the situation at hand. The military definitely doesn't like paying higher prices just because someone wants better food than what's available at the chow hall but it should be fairly easy for them to write an exemption for physically handicapped personnel who would be put to extraordinary exertion and pain in order to get to the regular chow hall.

[Bailey Guns]

"Reduction in spending" my ass. Why is it the people who need government assistance the most are the least likely to get it and made to suffer more than they already have? Our CinC can change law on a whim, take numerous multi-million dollar vacations each year and wastefully spend taxpayer money to the tune of trillions. But he can't step in to fix this?

"Reduction in spending" is a typical response to explain away a bureaucrat's fucked up decision. How about we get Solydra to pay back the $.5B taxpayer dollars they squandered to fund the cafe? This has nothing to do with wanting a smaller gov't, either.

This is a fucking disgrace no matter how anyone wants to explain it away.

[Inconel710]

Sounds par for the course at the "new" Walter Reed (formerly known as Bethesda Naval Hospital). Had an Army doc (Major) there tell my wife the huge bone spurs on her knee were "her own fault" and she "should walk more" while I was AD. First civilian ortho surgeon we went to after I left AD told her she had the knees of an 80 yr old woman and needed an artificial knee!

It's crap like we went through that makes me cringe when someone brings up socialized medicine. Ask a vet how well their "socialized" medicine is working out for them!

[Bailey Guns]

I've also read where ICE is spending God knows how much money on illegal aliens now who've learned to ask for "asylum" in the US. They're putting them up in hotels in CA and other border states by the thousands. They start the paperwork, get a court date and they're never heard from again.

Our gov't wastes so much money it's unbelievable and now they're trying to convince me they can't afford to feed our most seriously wounded men and women? Fuck that. I don't believe it for a minute. Already called Lamborn, Udall and Bennet with my opinions of this nonsense.

[Aloha_Shooter]

Bailey, I'm not arguing with you about the stupid ways and amounts the government spends. The Obama administration has definitely taken a page from Clinton's book in cutting areas that hurt the most people in the most public way and studiously avoiding cutting expenses in areas that would be painless to the average citizen. That doesn't negate the fact that DoD was directed to cut their budget and even current year expenditures and their options are limited. If it were me, I'd have shut down several agencies and programs but then again, I believe they could balance the budget immediately even using the biased tool and data NPR provided on the web before the election.

IMO, we should set a low bar for support to any prisoner, immigrant, "humanitarian refugee", etc. such that they will receive no better accommodations, no better meals, no more benefits or pay than the lowest paid, worst-off soldier/sailor/airman/marine including having to eat from a mess hall that may be located a mile or more away and that DOESN'T cater to individual dietary whims. By accommodations, I'm thinking about the 55-year-old Quonset huts up near the Korean DMZ or hot bunking on subs or SOSUS ships. By meals, I mean the kind of fare that would do Cookie from the Sad Sack comic strips proud. If they have money for a cell phone, they have money to upgrade their food themselves.

[Bailey Guns]

I understand all that and I didn't mean to attack you personally. It just infuriates me that so much is wasted and something like this, a comparative drop in the budget bucket, is attacked by bureaucrats. I'm appalled that these wounded are having to even pay for meals when they're in the hospital recuperating from life-threatening wounds.

[Bailey Guns]

Good news:


After Fox News submitted multiple inquiries with senior military officials earlier this week, the Pentagon responded late Wednesday. Lt. Col. Catherine Wilkinson, a Pentagon spokesman, told Fox News that Dr. Jonathan Woodson, assistant secretary of Defense for health affairs, had decided to reverse the changes.


At the time, no patients had been notified of this decision. Wetzel confirmed on Thursday the hospital had reversed course.


Initially, the military moved to close the cafe on weekends, shorten its hours and invalidate meal tickets. The decision would mean wounded warriors who would normally have a government-funded meal just down the hall would have to walk, wheel or limp nearly a half-mile across the Walter Reed campus to the temporary "food trailer" for breakfast, lunch and dinner.


Read More (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/08/15/military-reverses-opens-dining-hall-to-wounded-warriors-after-fox-news/#ixzz2c4yJKu88)

[funkymonkey1111]

the same DoD that's just going to scrap two-thousand MRAPs that cost $1M each instead of bringing them home. Of course, they still have 24,000 of them (maybe DHS needs some?)

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/08/15/it-could-be-uncle-sam-biggest-yard-sale/

[SuperiorDG]

They should be serving these people three meals a day to their rooms. It's a hospital for God's sake.

[Aloha_Shooter]

the same DoD that's just going to scrap two-thousand MRAPs that cost $1M each instead of bringing them home. Of course, they still have 24,000 of them (maybe DHS needs some?)

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/08/15/it-could-be-uncle-sam-biggest-yard-sale/

It's a freaking crime that we have to pay Afghanistan or Pakistan customs to bring our own stuff back. We should be charging them big bucks for having harbored international criminals who caused the death of thousands of American citizens and billions of dollars of property loss.

[Jeffrey Lebowski]

"Reduction in spending" my ass.

Especially when this falls under one of the few things the constitution actually does call for, IMO.