# How the Bush military cares for injured reservists.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-bush-military-cares-for-injured-reservists/208276
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [October 19, 2003, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-bush-military-cares-for-injured-reservists/208276 "2003-10-19T00:33:30Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2003, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-bush-military-cares-for-injured-reservists/208276/1 "2003-10-19T00:33:30Z")
> [@](#):
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> FORT STEWART, Ga., Oct. 17 (UPI) – Hundreds of sick and wounded U.S. soldiers including many who served in the Iraq war are languishing in hot cement barracks here while they wait – sometimes for months – to see doctors.
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> The National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers’ living conditions are so substandard, and the medical care so poor, that many of them believe the Army is trying push them out with reduced benefits for their ailments. One document shown to UPI states that no more doctor appointments are available from Oct. 14 through Nov. 11 – Veterans Day.
[http://www.drudgereport.com/flash3.htm](http://www.drudgereport.com/flash3.htm)
So this is how they care for our citizen soldiers. Yeah, the are pro military. As long as you are able to kill for them. Get wounded and you are forgotten.
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### Author:  [@Michael\_Ellis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael_Ellis)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2003, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-bush-military-cares-for-injured-reservists/208276/2 "2003-10-19T00:36:36Z")
Depressing and despicable as this is, how is this Bush’s fault?
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### Author:  [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2003, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-bush-military-cares-for-injured-reservists/208276/3 "2003-10-19T00:37:35Z")
Who is CIC?
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### Author:  [@Kinthalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kinthalis)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2003, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-bush-military-cares-for-injured-reservists/208276/4 "2003-10-19T00:38:06Z")
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> \*Originally posted by Michael Ellis \*
> \*\*Depressing and despicable as this is, how is this Bush’s fault? \*\*
Are you kidding? If he’s not responsible, who is?
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### Author:  [@Michael\_Ellis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael_Ellis)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2003, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-bush-military-cares-for-injured-reservists/208276/5 "2003-10-19T01:13:33Z")
> [@](#):
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> \*Originally posted by Kinthalis \*
> \*\*Are you kidding? If he’s not responsible, who is? \*\*
The Defense Department?
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### Author:  [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2003, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-bush-military-cares-for-injured-reservists/208276/6 "2003-10-19T01:17:17Z")
Who is Rummy’s boss?
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### Author:  [@Cerri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cerri)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2003, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-bush-military-cares-for-injured-reservists/208276/7 "2003-10-19T01:18:33Z")
Admittedly I am ignorant about the way military spending and who is responsible for it works so I’m hoping someone will explain.
I’m confused, if Bush can get money for a war, why can’t he get money for injured soldiers? If he’s not directly responsible for causing the problem, can’t he at least be considered repsonsible for fixing it?
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### Author:  [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2003, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-bush-military-cares-for-injured-reservists/208276/8 "2003-10-19T01:19:18Z")
C’mon. We all know that Reeder thinks Bush should be held directly responsible for every little misdeed that occurs in the military and government. Sheesh.
Get real, folks. While someone should be held responsible for this, it’s not Bush’s fault – not unless he was already aware of this problem beforehand.
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### Author:  [@Michael\_Ellis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael_Ellis)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2003, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-bush-military-cares-for-injured-reservists/208276/9 "2003-10-19T01:28:04Z")
> [@](#):
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> \*Originally posted by JThunder \*
> \*\*Get real, folks. While someone should be held responsible for this, it’s not Bush’s fault – not unless he was already aware of this problem beforehand. \*\*
Exactly.
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### Author:  [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2003, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-bush-military-cares-for-injured-reservists/208276/10 "2003-10-19T01:35:25Z")
What was that quote?..“The Buck stops here!”
Oh wait. That was from a president who actually took responsibilty wasn’t it? Not the one who says…Who me?
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### Author:  [@Michael\_Ellis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael_Ellis)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2003, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-bush-military-cares-for-injured-reservists/208276/11 "2003-10-19T01:44:17Z")
> [@](#):
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> \*Originally posted by Reeder \*
> \*\*Oh wait. That was from a president who actually took responsibilty wasn’t it? Not the one who says…Who me? \*\*
You still haven’t explained why this is Bush’s responsibility, other than him being Commander-in-Chief. Which isn’t really an explanation. That’s like saying the CEO of a multi-national corporation has direct responsibility for a company nurse in an office building somewhere.
Not that this makes the poor soldiers any better. But at least blame the people directly in charge of the military hospitals. Or the people who wrote up the budgets for these hospitals. I doubt Bush did it himself.
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### Author:  [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2003, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-bush-military-cares-for-injured-reservists/208276/12 "2003-10-19T02:02:25Z")
Bush has held the office of the Presidency for nearly three years. At this point, yeah, he’s the one responsible for stuff like this. Would Congress appropriate money to make sure that sick and wounded soldiers are properly taken care of? You bet.
It’s specifically the responsibility of the Secretary of Defense (guy named Rumsfeld; you may have heard of him) to know what’s working and what’s not in the Department of Defense, which includes Fort Stewart. And it’s his responsibility to make sure monies for stuff like this get in the budget and the appropriations bills.
On top of this, my feeling is that if they care enough about Fort Stewart to use it as the backdrop for yet another Presidential photo op, then they ought to care enough about it to make sure the servicemen housed there are being treated reasonably.
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### Author:  [@Doomtrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doomtrain)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2003, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-bush-military-cares-for-injured-reservists/208276/13 "2003-10-19T03:00:19Z")
I find these kinds of threads so amusing. If Clinton had done this, you’d hear the blood vessels popping all over the country and the thread would go to 8 pages of chest thumping anger.
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### Author:  [@fushj00mang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fushj00mang)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2003, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-bush-military-cares-for-injured-reservists/208276/14 "2003-10-19T04:29:51Z")
> [@](#):
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> Would Congress appropriate money to make sure that sick and wounded soldiers are properly taken care of?
You seem to believe that Congress allocates the DoD enough money for everything. Not so. Hell, the DoD is the only part of the government which HAS to stick to its budget. Because 20th Fighter Wing has been an active part of the fighting in Iraq, they have had to stop using the Pointsette Bombing Range to make up for the shortfall in fuels. We haven’t been doing training exercises because we’re over-budget. My cousin, a gunners mate on the USS Valley Forge has said they’re expecting sixteen weeks in port starting in November because the Navy can’t provide supplies for a deep water patrol.
Yet, the Department of Education can spend spend spend. Which is a better product?
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### Author:  [@Beagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beagle)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2003, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-bush-military-cares-for-injured-reservists/208276/15 "2003-10-19T04:39:51Z")
“The buck stops here” requires bucking to begin first. Has Bush heard about the problem yet? That would be good to know. I read the whole article and it’s clear that Bush made a speech at the military instillation in question. That’s spun to mean he saw the day-to-day workings of the facility. I would not assume that.
But, now that Drudge has it, Bush better do something quick. I guess the bucking has unofficially begun. Throw in some DoD or VA bureaucrats and we’ll have a big buckfest.
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### Author:  [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2003, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-bush-military-cares-for-injured-reservists/208276/16 "2003-10-19T10:19:50Z")
> [@](#):
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> \*Originally posted by fushj00mang \*
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> > [@](#):
> >
> > Would Congress appropriate money to make sure that sick and wounded soldiers are properly taken care of?
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> You seem to believe that Congress allocates the DoD enough money for everything. Not so.
Believe it or not, I’ve long been aware of that. Back in the mid-1980s, I lived near an AFB, and had friends who were stationed there. The tales of having to cannibalize planes for spare parts were kinda hair-raising at times. And this was in the middle of the Reagan years, when the defense budget was about as flush as it gets.
What I’m saying, if you care to listen, is that if the Bush administration cares to tell Congress that it _specifically_ needs money because the soldiers returning from Iraq aren’t getting proper medical care, that money will be appropriated as near to yesterday as they can manage. _Nobody_ in Congress is going to risk his constituents’ wrath for denying proper medical care to our men and women in uniform.
> [@](#):
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> Hell, the DoD is the only part of the government which HAS to stick to its budget. \
> Yet, the Department of Education can spend spend spend. Which is a better product?
Cite, please.
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### Author:  [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2003, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-bush-military-cares-for-injured-reservists/208276/17 "2003-10-19T10:49:09Z")
> [@](#):
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> \*Originally posted by Beagle \*
> “The buck stops here” requires bucking to begin first. Has Bush heard about the problem yet? That would be good to know. I read the whole article and it’s clear that Bush made a speech at the military instillation in question. That’s spun to mean he saw the day-to-day workings of the facility. I would not assume that.
I don’t think anyone’s assuming that, nor do I think it’s necessary to.
What I do assume is:
1. Bush & Co. have been running the government for 33 months now.
1a) The statute of limitations for blaming things on the Clinton administration has passed.
1b) The Bushies have been running things long enough so that the political appointees should have a pretty detailed grasp of what’s going on by now. Not Bush himself, and not even the Cabinet members, but that’s why you have Deputy Assistant Undersecretaries coming out the wazoo, and they in turn have aides and subordinates.
1c) In the DoD, I figure one of them ought to have at least a passing awareness of and responsibility for how the wounded soldiers from Iraq are being cared for. Especially considering - if nothing else - what terrible PR it would be if we weren’t doing right by them.
2. An executive _is_ responsible for the organizational culture of his outfit. IOW, he’s responsible for creating an environment where problems that can be dealt with at a low level, get dealt with; and problems that can’t be dealt with at that level, get booted upwards to catch the attention of the people who _can_ deal with them.
3. This particular problem has been going on at Fort Stewart for several months. It isn’t fixed, and it sounds like nobody’s in a hurry to fix it.
4. On top of that, they ought to figure that if they use a place as a setting for a Presidential event, _people might pay more attention to that place than otherwise_. So they might should check it out well enough, ahead of time, to make sure the site of the speech won’t politically backfire in some unsuspected way. So the White House politicos should have tripped over this problem and _both_ (a) moved the President’s speech somewhere else, and (b) put the problem with the wounded soldiers on top of Rummy’s in-box, with a red flag.
So I think it’s perfectly fair to lay this one at the feet of the Bush administration. And I think **GMRyujin** is correct - if something like this had happened under Clinton, then Rush and Ollie and G. Gordon and all of the rest of the right-wing radio mouths would have been _personally_ excoriating Clinton over it.
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### Author:  [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2003, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-bush-military-cares-for-injured-reservists/208276/18 "2003-10-19T11:20:44Z")
> [@](#):
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> \*Originally posted by RTFirefly \*
> \*\* 3) This particular problem has been going on at Fort Stewart for several months. It isn’t fixed, and it sounds like nobody’s in a hurry to fix it.
>
> \*\*
Could it be that those in charge of FT. Stewart have been dragging their heels, thinking they could find a way to fix rather than alerting the next in the chain of command? Maybe make themselves look good to their bosses in the process? And the problem spiralled out of control and now they are looking for ways to cover their asses? (which would NOT include telling their higher-ups, as they would probably ask “Why is this the first I’ve heard about it???”)
I’m a Bush hater. But no CEO knows _eveything_ about their organization. They depend on a chain of command to be be informed of problems and possible solutions. And there are humans all throughout that chain of command. So, yeah, we can always expect screw-ups. It could well be that Bush just found about it and is ALREADY taking steps to correct it that have not yet made news…
I’m just saying…
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### Author:  [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2003, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-bush-military-cares-for-injured-reservists/208276/19 "2003-10-19T13:34:03Z")
Whoa! Hold on a second here. I see no mention of Bush in **Reeder’s** OP. All he has done is quote an article and post a cite and some of you have decided _on your own_ that Bush is being bashed. Seems to me that the problem is equated to the White House in your own minds without any prompting from **Reeder**.
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### Author:  [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2003, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-bush-military-cares-for-injured-reservists/208276/20 "2003-10-19T13:59:54Z")
> [@](#):
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> \*Originally posted by Chefguy \*
> \*\*Whoa! Hold on a second here. I see no mention of Bush in **Reeder’s** OP. All he has done is quote an article and post a cite and some of you have decided _on your own_ that Bush is being bashed. Seems to me that the problem is equated to the White House in your own minds without any prompting from **Reeder**. \*\*
> [@](#):
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> Who is CIC?
>
> **AND**
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> Who is Rummy’s boss?
>
> **AND**
> What was that quote?..“The Buck stops here!”
>
> Oh wait. That was from a president who actually took responsibilty wasn’t it? Not the one who says…Who me?
I think it’s pretty clear that **Reeder** means it’s Bush.
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