BRAC Fallout: Walter Reed National Military Medical Center

Purple Heart(click to view full) DID has covered the USA’s Base Realignment and Closure process before, a fairly unique effort whereby a commission draws up a list of bases to be closed, and the Congress must vote yes or no to the entire list. The result is that it becomes much harder (but not impossible) for Congressmen to protect each base, and easier to create a basing system whose priorities are shifted toward military rather than political needs. The 2005 BRAC Commission’s recommendation to realign and consolidate facilities in the USA’s National Capital Region, in order to meet the medical and security needs of the 21st century, includes the realignment of all tertiary medical services currently located at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, MD. The new joint operational medical facility will be named the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, and will be staffed by personnel from the Navy, Army and Air Force. The existing Walter Reed main installation is mandated to close by 2011, according to the BRAC law. DID thought this was an interesting BRAC initiative to cover going forward as a Spotlight article… and then the […]