Panels cut Future Combat Systems funding, back larger military pay raise

May 9, 2008 by admin.

The House Armed Services Air and Land Forces Subcommittee Wednesday unanimously approved by voice vote its portion of the fiscal 2009 defense authorization bill, cutting $200 million from the Army’s Future Combat Systems and $166 million from the service’s Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter to fund more pressing priorities.

Indeed, subcommittee members agreed to add $800 million to fill equipment shortfalls for the Army National Guard and Army Reserve, whose leaders have testified repeatedly about dramatic shortages in inventories.

“The [chairman’s] mark first addresses the near-term imperative to provide all the equipment our soldiers and airmen need for their combat and domestic response needs,” Air and Land Forces Subcommittee Chairman Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, said in his opening statement. “Doing so is a non-negotiable responsibility of this subcommittee, and takes precedence over all other considerations.”

Meanwhile, the House Armed Services Personnel Subcommittee quickly and unanimously approved its share of the authorization bill, echoing in most areas the action taken last week by the Senate Armed Services Committee.

It increased the military pay raise to 3.9 percent, half a percentage point over the president’s request, authorized an additional 7,000 soldiers and 5,000 Marines and rejected again the proposed Tricare pharmacy fee increase. But Personnel Subcommittee Chairwoman Susan Davis, D-Calif., said the panel would have to work with the full committee to find the $1.2 billion to pay for it.

The Abercrombie panel’s cut in the Pentagon’s $3.6 billion request for FCS is far smaller than the panel’s previous cuts to the program amid cost and feasibility concerns. But the mark includes five new provisions aimed at boosting congressional oversight of the $160 billion program and shifts $33 million from long-term FCS development to more near-term portions of the program.

The Senate Armed Services Committee’s version of the bill provides full funding for FCS. Meanwhile, the cut to the Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter, second only in size to the FCS cut, was the result of concerns about cost increases and delays. The Pentagon sought $438.9 million for ARH, from which the Senate version cuts $75 million. The panel approved over Pentagon objections $526 million for a second engine program for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

It approved a $2.2 billion request to upgrade Abrams tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles and Stryker armored vehicles and another $570 million to buy six C-130 Hercules transport planes. In addition, the panel approved $1.6 billion for eight F-35s; with the remaining eight F-35s in the Pentagon’s request to be approved by another subcommittee.

The subcommittee agreed to recommend to the full committee some major changes to areas that fall outside its jurisdiction. Those include $3.9 billion in fiscal 2009 war funding for 15 more Boeing C-17 Globemaster III cargo planes not requested by the Pentagon.

The House’s version of the pending supplemental spending bill also includes money for 15 C-17s. The panel also backed $523 million in war spending for advanced procurement for 20 more F-22 aircraft in fiscal 2010.

The current multiyear contract for F-22s expires in fiscal 2009, but the Air Force has said it would like 198 more of the fighters than the 183 now planned. The Senate’s version includes additional F-22 money that could be used either for advanced procurement or efforts to shut down Lockheed Martin’s production line. 

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Defense, VA urged to spend more on mental health, brain injury treatments

May 5, 2008 by admin.

By Rafael Enrique Valero
rvalero@govexec.com
April 29, 2008

In a congressional briefing on Monday, RAND Corp. called on the Defense and the Veterans Affairs departments to lead a nationwide effort to care for the growing number of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. A little more than half of all returning service members seeking care for PTSD or depression are receiving minimally adequate care, RAND reported. Promoting a nationwide effort might be a matter of dollars and sense, RAND concluded in a recent study, which noted that if the government invested in treatment for at least 50 percent of soldiers suffering from PTSD it would see an overall cost savings. “If we can get 100 percent of those in need into effective evidence-based care the costs come down even further,” said Terri Tanielian, co-director of RAND’s Center for Military Health Policy Research. “These savings come from increases in productivity and lower rates of attempted suicide.” Effective care has not yet reached all treatment settings, said Tanielian, but the estimated cost to care for mild traumatic brain injury averaged $30,000 per patient while moderate to severe cases cost $350,000. Many vets are released from service without a brain injury diagnosis and are being treated by private doctors, according to the report, making it difficult to calculate the overall cost of such cases. Citing 2,700 documented cases at the Defense Department, Tanielian said the government has spent $770 million to treat traumatic brain injury in the first half of 2007. If all soldiers needing care for PTSD and depression received proper treatment, costs could be reduced by $1.7 billion, or $1,063 per veteran, she added. RAND reported that of the 1.64 million troops deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq, an estimated 300,000 suffer from PTSD or depression and 330,000, have experienced mild, moderate or severe brain injuries. Tanielian said most of those soldiers likely have the mild form — a concussion — but 60 percent of those afflicted with brain injuries have not been evaluated by doctors. “So what’s unknown is the current level of need in this population. And it is that unknown that could hurt those exposed to TBI that is the most concern,” she said, adding that the high volume of cases report in the RAND was “in the ballpark” of an Army surgeon general report released in 2007. Ten percent to 20 percent of soldiers returning from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan suffered from mild TBI, said the Army surgeon general’s Traumatic Brain Injury Task Force report , which like PTSD “may produce similar symptoms, such as sleep problems, memory problems, confusion and irritability.” “Our findings demonstrate that, like our civilian counterparts, the Army has a good handle on treatment of moderate to severe TBI, but is challenged to understand, diagnose and treat military personnel who suffer with mild TBI,” said task force chairman Brig. Gen. Donald Bradshaw, commander of the Army’s Southeast Regional Medical Command. RAND’s 500-page study, which surveyed 1,965 recently returned soldiers, estimated that 30 percent of all deployable service members have experienced PTSD, depression or TBI. Founded after World War II, RAND has been a key think tank advising the military services for 60 years. Calling for a nationwide effort to care for traumatized soldiers, Tanielian said the military should rapidly expand the number of health care providers and make them accessible anywhere in the country, encourage soldiers to seek treatment, and invest in research to better understand what wounded soldiers need after leaving active duty. “We need to make sure that changes in this policy are directed not just at the DoD and VA, but make this a national priority and an issue across America,” she said.

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Navy forms fleet to serve Western Hemisphere

May 2, 2008 by admin.

By Greg Grant ggrant@govexec.com April 30, 2008
The Navy last week created a new 4th Fleet, responsible for Navy ships, aircraft and submarines operating in the Caribbean and Central and South America. The move signals the Pentagon’s recognition of the importance of the region and elevates the Navy’s stature there, said Rear Adm. James Stevenson Jr., who commands all naval forces in the Southern Hemisphere.
The 4th Fleet will be headquartered at Mayport, Fla. The Navy will not station ships there permanently, but the establishment of the command will allow the service to respond more quickly to natural disasters such as hurricanes or to emergencies requiring humanitarian relief, Stevenson told reporters on Wednesday. The command will have responsibility for any Navy ship or aircraft deploying to Latin America.
The 4th Fleet originally was created during World War II to hunt enemy submarines and was disbanded in 1950. Today, the 4th Fleet focuses on providing humanitarian assistance and disaster relief in the area, especially in the hurricane-plagued Caribbean. It also provides additional ships, submarines and aircraft for counternarcotics operations in the region.
The surveillance and stealthy monitoring capabilities of Navy submarines make them particularly useful against drug runners, Stevenson said. In recent years, sophisticated drug traffickers have made greater use of small submarines to smuggle drugs into the United States.
The Navy’s new maritime strategy elevated disaster relief and humanitarian operations to the same level as combat operations, Stevenson said, and the service’s amphibious warfare ships have the shallow draft that allows them to enter the region’s ports. They also have the capacity to carry large quantities of medical supplies.
Last year, the hospital ship Comfort provided medical assistance to about 300,000 people. This year, the amphibious ships Boxer and Kearsarge will make about 20 ports of call in the Caribbean and along the East Coast of South America. “It’s quite remarkable once the word gets out,” Stevenson said about the response when a Navy medical ship makes a port of call.
Navy ships can be positioned nearby when a hurricane is approaching landfall and can move in almost immediately to provide medical care and deliver food and shelter, he said.
Stevenson said the Navy also is mindful of events in Cuba and the chance of another mass migration from the island, which happened in the 1980s and 1990s when thousands fled by small boats for U.S. shores. “If you don’t have the capability to rescue these people, you have a disaster on your hands,” he said.
In addition, half the nation’s oil imports and 40 percent of its exports come from the region. To keep the sea lanes secure, Navy ships partner with ships from other regional naval forces to conduct training exercises and military-to-military exchanges.

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Top military doctors say six- to nine-month combat tours would reduce stress

April 30, 2008 by admin.

Top military doctors say six- to nine-month combat tours would reduce stress
By Bob Brewin April 17, 2008
The surgeon generals of the Army, Navy and Air Force told senators on Wednesday that the optimal tour in Afghanistan and Iraq to reduce combat stress should be six to nine months with 18 months at home, far shorter than the cut in tours from 15 to 12 months ordered by President Bush last week.
Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Eric Schoomaker emphasized that his was a medical assessment of the optimal length for combat tours and that “operational imperatives dictate [length of] deployments.”
Vice Adm. Adam Robinson, the Navy’s surgeon general, said less time at home between deployments has had a “devastating” effect on troops and their families since the United States commenced operations in Iraq five years ago.
While Air Force personnel in general average much shorter deployments — about three months — Lt. Gen. James Roudebush, the service’s chief doctor, told the hearing that “my leadership pays close attention to rotation and dwell times…I agree that six months, plus or minus” is an optimal deployment length.
The views of the top military doctors on deployment periods and increased time at home dovetail with the opinions of senior military leaders and studies that have shown stress increases with the length of time in combat.
The Army’s chief of staff, Gen. George W. Casey, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in February that “The cumulative effects of the last six-plus years of war have left our Army out of balance, consumed by the current fight, and unable to do the things that we know we need to do to properly sustain our all-volunteer force and restore our flexibility for an uncertain future.” Casey added that “frequent deployments are taking their toll on our soldiers and their equipment.”
Also in February, the Army reported that a mental health assessment team sent to evaluate troops deployed overseas determined that “reports of work-related problems due to stress, mental health problems and marital separations generally increased with each subsequent month of deployment.” Also, the team’s report said, “Soldiers on their third or fourth deployment were at significantly higher risk than soldiers on their first or second deployment for mental health problems and work-related problems.” The team conducted its field studies between October and November 2007.
The military services have boosted the number of mental health professionals in war zones, including psychologists and social workers, the three surgeon generals told the panel. But the same stresses that troops experience from frequent and long deployments have a deleterious effect on recruitment and retention of mental health professionals, Schoomaker told the hearing. Behavioral health personnel, he said “are among the most frequently deployed.”
Schoomaker said the Army tries to meet its target of one behavioral health professional per 1,000 soldiers, but the mental heath assessment team said deployed soldiers reported in 2007 that they had “more difficulty accessing behavioral health services….” Behavioral health specialists also told the assessment team that they saw a significant increase in the advice they gave commanders about mental health issues and at the same time experienced higher burnout themselves.

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House Veterans Affairs Committee Holds Oversight Hearing to Address Vision Needs of Veterans with TBI

April 11, 2008 by admin.

April 2, 2008

Contact Kristal DeKleer at (202) 225-9756 Washington, D.C. – On Wednesday, the House Veterans’ Affairs Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, led by Chairman Harry Mitchell (D-AZ), conducted a hearing to examine vision dysfunctions resulting from traumatic brain injury (TBI). Recent research suggests that vision problems may be a common and previously unrecognized consequence of TBI.    “Traumatic brain injury is one of the signature injuries for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and I am afraid that vision problems are becoming the unrecognized result of that injury,” said Chairman Mitchell.  “We now know that military and VA health care providers must be especially alert to vision deficits resulting from TBI, even when there is no obvious physical injury to the eye.” 

Dr. Thomas Zampieri of Blinded Veterans Association discussed the prevalence of visual impairments and suspected inaccurate vision diagnoses as a result of service during the current military operations, Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF): “As of February 26 of this year, there were 29,317 wounded in OIF/OEF operations, of which 8,904 required air medical evacuation. Another 8,273 military personnel injured in non-hostile action have also been evacuated from Iraq or Afghanistan. Between March 19, 2003 and September 17, 2007, 1,162 of those evacuated had sustained direct eye trauma. This means that 13 percent of all evacuated wounded had sustained direct eye trauma, the highest percentage of eye wounded in more than 160 years of American wars. Based on additional information that we have received during the aforementioned four-year period, mostly anecdotal in nature, BVA believes that perhaps many more than 1,162 service members evacuated from Iraq or Afghanistan have experienced direct eye trauma.”

Navy veteran Glenn Minney testified to his experience with getting treatment for vision problems following a mortar blast during his military service at Haditha Dam in Iraq. Minney was wounded on April 18, 2005 and was initially treated for direct injury to his eyes, not for brain injury.  Only after having an MRI at the Wounded Warriors Barracks at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, ten months after his initial injury, did he learn he “was suffering from a severe TBI.  All the medical centers I described above and not one had performed any sort of MRI, CT Scan, or even an X-Ray…It was then they discovered I had a loss of brain tissue in the parietal lobe as well as the occipital lobe (which works the eyes). I went through several neuro-psych exams to determine the extent of my injury, and after several tests, it was determined that the TBI was also a major cause in my loss of sight. The eye healed from the surgeries, but it was also the optic nerve that was damaged as a result of the TBI that was now a concern.  In 9/06 I was officially retired from the Navy, and I was rated at 100 percent disabled.”

Staff Sergeant Brian Pearce and his wife, Angela, testified to a similar experience.  Sgt. Pearce suffered significant injuries in an Improved Explosive Device blast in 2006, including TBI.  Sgt. Pearce still has 20/20 vision, but as a result of the TBI, he is legally blind.  As he testified, “[i]t is my brain that will not allow my eyes to function appropriately.”  Sgt. Pearce needed recognition of the nature of his injuries and seamless cooperation on his care between VA and the Department of Defense.  Partly due to a failure to appreciate the nature and extent of his TBI-related visual dysfunction, Sgt. Pearce and Angela encountered obstacles and delays in obtaining proper treatment. 

The Subcommittee heard from VA clinician-researchers about their ground-breaking research into the connections between TBI and visual dysfunction.  The panelists offered recommendations to improve screenings and assessments for veterans with vision issues and also discussed technological advances in equipment and rehabilitation programs.   This technology, which includes the development of computerized visual stimulation devices, is available to veterans, though on a limited basis.

In recognition of the importance of identifying and treating eye injuries and vision dysfunction in injured service members, Congress included a provision in the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act which directs the Department of Defense to create an eye care center of excellence which is required to “collaborate to the maximum extent practicable” with the VA.  Reports from both Departments and testimony from hearing witnesses suggested that progress on this eye care center has so far been limited to developing a computerized registry of those suffering from vision deficits.

“We cannot wait any longer to implement these new technologies and make them available to our wounded service members and veterans,” said Bob Filner (D-CA), Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.  “Our veterans did not wait for research results before navigating an alley in Iraq or patrolling a village in Afghanistan.  They did not perform a cost-benefit analysis before implementing the orders that were given to them.  We owe these heroes prompt and bold action.”   

Witnesses:Panel 1

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Staff Sergeant (Ret.) Brian Pearce, U.S. Army Combat Veteran

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Angela M. Pearce, Wife of U.S. Army Combat Veteran

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HM1 (FMF) (Ret.) Glenn Minney, U.S. Navy Combat Veteran

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Thomas Zampieri, Ph.D., Director of Government Relations, Blinded Veterans Association

Panel 2

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Randolph S. Marshall, M.D., M.S., Professor of Clinical Neurology, Director, Division of Cerebrovascular Diseases, Columbia University Medical Center, Testifying on behalf of NovaVision, Inc.

Accompanied by:

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Navroze S. Mehta, President/CEO, NovaVision, Inc.

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Mary Warren, M.S., OTR/L, Associate Professor of Occupational Therapy, Director, Graduate Certification in Low Vision Rehabilitation Program, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Testifying on behalf of Performance Enterprises and Dynavision 2000

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Gayle Clarke, Chief Executive Officer, Neuro Vision Technology Pty. Ltd.

Panel 3

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James Orcutt, M.D., Chief of Ophthalmology, Veterans Health Administration, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

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Barbara Sigford, M.D., Ph.D., National Program Director for Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Veterans Health Administration, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

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Glenn Cockerham, M.D., Chief of Ophthalmology, VA Palo Alto Health Care System, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

Accompanied by:

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Gregory L. Goodrich, Ph.D., Research Psychologist, Western Blind Rehabilitation Center, VA Palo Alto Health Care System, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

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Colonel (P) Loree K. Sutton, M.D., Director, Department of Defense Center of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury, U.S. Department of Defense
Accompanied by:

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Major General Gale S. Pollock, Deputy Surgeon General for Force Management, Chief, Army Nurse Corps, U.S. Department of Defense

Prepared testimony and a link to the webcast of the hearing is available on the internet at this link:  http://veterans.house.gov/hearings/hearing.aspx?newsid=219.

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General: Army reliance on National Guard won’t diminish

March 20, 2008 by admin.

General: Army reliance on National Guard won’t diminish
By Megan Scully CongressDaily March 19, 2008

Despite efforts to increase the size of the active-duty Army to ease the strains of repeated deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, a senior Army officer predicted Wednesday that the military’s heavy reliance on the Army National Guard and Reserve will continue for “another generation.”
A larger force will mean significantly more time at home between overseas missions for all active and reserve combat units, but the Army’s reserve component will continue to function as an operational force for the foreseeable future, Gen. Charles Campbell, who heads U.S. Army Forces Command, said during a breakfast with reporters.
Although it is growing by 65,000 troops, the active-duty Army still is not large enough to handle what is expected to be an era of persistent conflict without its reserve, Campbell said. “To meet that demand, we are going to have to continue to be reliant on our reserve component,” he said. “That’s a reality. It’s been a reality that’s been true now for seven years and it’s likely to be true for another generation.”
The Army recently deployed five National Guard brigades to Iraq and expects to deploy seven more for overseas missions in the next rotation, said Campbell, whose command is responsible for training, equipping and deploying units mobilized for combat operations. The Army hopes to soon give reservists at least four years at home between deployments — a schedule that still would allow the Army to deploy five or six National Guard combat brigades each year.
The Army, Campbell said, has a few options to meet operational demands without repeatedly tapping its reserve forces for deployments, but none are affordable nor politically feasible. The active-duty Army would have to expand to 800,000 soldiers — 253,000 more than its current end-strength goal — to meet overseas demands on its own.
“I’m not suggesting that a large Army is not desirable,” Campbell said. “But I think there is a reality associated with whether or not you can recruit and sustain that large of an Army given today’s demographics. And then there’s the issue of affordability.” The other option, Campbell said, is reinstating the draft — a tremendously unpopular solution within the Army’s own ranks and the general public.
“If you don’t reinstate the draft and you don’t grow the Army to 800,000, what are your alternatives?” Campbell said. “Well, your alternative [is to] create predictable access to properly ready formations in the Guard and Reserve.”
Over the next two years, the Army Guard will receive $17 billion in new gear to replenish stateside equipment coffers that have diminished since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
Billions of dollars more are expected to flow to Guard and Reserve units over the next several years, marking an unprecedented investment in these forces. With that investment, Campbell said, comes an expectation that those units will be ready for deployments.
“There has been a historical theme that as the federal government has infused more resources into the citizen soldier formation … that there is a commensurate expectation of greater access and utilization,” Campbell said. “I think that’s a fair expectation.”

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Veterans Affairs closer to deploying comprehensive e-Benefits portal

March 18, 2008 by admin.

By Bob Brewin bbrewin@govexec.com March 14, 2008
The Veterans Affairs Department has started inching toward deployment of an online comprehensive health care and benefits portal recommended by the President’s Commission on Care for America’s Returning Wounded Warriors in an August 2007 report. VA expects to have a bare-bones site operating in the next few weeks on Army Knowledge On-Line (AKO), the Army’s enterprise Web portal.
The Wounded Warriors Commission recommended that VA and the Defense Department develop within a year a Web-based portal to provide patients with health care and benefits information from the two departments. On March 11, top VA and Defense officials told the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee that they intend to develop Web portals that integrate veterans’ heath records on a comprehensive Web site, which also provides information on follow-up services.
Retired Air Force Col. Peter Bunce, father of Justin Bunce, a medically retired Marine Corporal severely wounded in Iraq, said in an interview that a Web portal was only as good as the information it contained. He urged that Web-based systems established by Defense and VA contain information on a range of clinical resources, including care available outside the VA and Defense health systems. Bunce said he found health care and specialists for his son Justin, who also suffers from traumatic brain injury, without VA’s help.
Bunce said any comprehensive Web portal should provide information based on geography, and the departments needed to devise a way to supply specialized care and benefits information to patients and their families, rather than expecting them to find it. VA also should ensure that each patient had a case manager who coordinated care — including home visits — and one lead doctor to manage clinical care, he added.
Dr. Paul Tibbits, VA’s deputy chief information officer for enterprise development, wrote in an e-mail that the initial, unsecured eBenefits Web site available through AKO will link to other sites for use by wounded, ill and injured service members, veterans and their families. By this fall, he said, VA anticipates having a secure eBenefits portal site operational, based on the log-on model of Army Knowledge Online and its Defense Knowledge Online counterpart. This version of the eBenefits portal will present health care and benefits information as recommended by the Wounded Warriors Commission, Tibbits said.
Kevin Carroll, a consultant who previously served as program executive officer for Army’s enterprise information systems, said AKO was safer and more efficient because VA will be able to tap into the AKO and DKO personnel directories and leverage those portals’ already developed applications. The department then could take a “cut-and-paste” approach to development, rather than start from scratch, he said.
VA also is developing an advanced Web portal called My eBenefits, which is scheduled to go live in fiscal 2009, according to Tibbits.

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Service Disabled Veteran Owned Business

March 18, 2008 by admin.

Please check out the following link.

http://www.sdvob.coop/

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Veteran Business Network Announces Public Launch of Online Community for Veteran Matters

March 14, 2008 by admin.

Veteran Business Network Announces Public Launch of Online Community for Veteran Matters

Monday March 10, 2:30 pm ET

VetBizNetwork Exposes Veterans to Online Community Resources

PENNSYLVANIA – Veteran TALK (www.w3VetNet.net), a Veteran web site that connects users seeking regarding veteran matters to valuable online community resources, today announced its public launch. Veteran TALK is a portal providing a  wealth of information within the veteran online community that is easily accessible to average web users. With Veteran TALK, veterans quickly ask and receive answers and support for important veteran matters — including business health, legal, and money.

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Navy Awards Contract for New Walter Reed Facility

March 10, 2008 by admin.

Navy Awards Contract for New Walter Reed Facility
American Forces Press Service
BETHESDA, Md., March 3, 2008 – A joint venture of Clark Construction of Bethesda, Md., and Balfour Beatty Construction, based in Atlanta, today received a $641.4 million from the Naval Facilities Engineering Command to design and build the new Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda.
The Navy command will oversee the planning and construction.

“I am confident that the new Walter Reed National Military Medical Center will be the crown jewel in an already illustrious military medical system. The most important mission for us is to provide the highest levels of care, comfort and convenience to our wounded heroes so they can focus on the most important mission of all, healing,†said Dr. S. Ward Casscells, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs.

The establishment of the new center on the grounds of the National Naval Medical Center was congressionally mandated under the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Act, which recommended the realignment of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, including the relocation of all tertiary medical services to the Bethesda campus and the renaming of the facility as the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. The law requires that all services be relocated by Sept. 15, 2011.

For the contractor to complete construction in accordance with BRAC legislation while minimizing impacts on ongoing patient care operations at the Bethesda complex, critical activities, most notably environmental isues, must be completed well in advance to the start of construction, officials said.

The final environmental impact statement is scheduled for release in early April. The required comment period under the National Environmental Policy Act ended Jan. 28, officials explained, and the official response to public comments will be included in the final economic impact statement.

Officials said the Defense Department is aware of the increased traffic concerns of the surrounding communities, and continues to consider measures to mitigate traffic issues that could arise during the period of construction, and work with local civilian leadership.

Plans call for the new, 345-bed medical center to be have the full range of intensive and complex specialty and subspecialty medical services, including specialized facilities for the most seriously war injured. It’s expected to become the U.S. military’s premier tertiary referral center for casualty and beneficiary care, to provide postgraduate education and other training, and to serve as a critical medical research center.

Concurrent to this project will be the construction of a new 120-bed military medical treatment facility at Fort Belvoir, Va.

“This is the next step in building the world-class medical center at the hub of the nation’s premier regional health care system,†said Navy Rear Adm. (Dr.) John M. Mateczun, commander of Joint Task Force Capital Region Medical. “The department intends to meet its obligation to ensure our service members and families receive the highest quality of care. There is nothing more important than taking care of our wounded warriors.â€

The new Walter Reed National Military Medical Center complex will include a mix of new outpatient and inpatient facilities as well as extensive renovations and upgrades to the existing hospital facilities. New circulation pathways, utility tunnels, and a parking structure are also included in the plans. Supporting facilities to be built under a separate contract include non-clinical and Warrior Transition administrative spaces, barracks, a gymnasium and additional parking.

About 2,200 staff positions will be added to the Bethesda campus; most of the new personnel added to the future facility will transfer from other DoD locations, officials said. Additionally, the Fisher House Foundation will build two new Fisher Houses and a National Intrepid Center of Excellence for Traumatic Brain Injury and Psychological Health Diagnosis, Treatment, Clinical Training, and Related Services to support wounded veterans and their families.

(From a Joint Task Force Capital Region Medical news release.)

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