ARMY SECRETARY RESIGNS OVER WALTER REED SCANDALS:

Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey abruptly stepped down Friday as the Bush administration struggled to cope with the fallout from a scandal over substandard conditions for wounded Iraq soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

The surprise move came one day after Harvey fired the two-star general in charge of the medical center in response to disclosures of problems at the hospital compound.

I don’t have much to say about this beyond — as with Enterprise, Alabama — “this sucks,” and unlike this medical story it’s gotten plenty of attention. But it does suck.

UPDATE: Robert Gates: A breath of fresh air?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Sgt. Mom emails:

Do you want to know what the biggest surprise in this whole Walter Reed ‘care of the troops’ scandal is for me, as a retired military person? It’s the surprise of the WaPo writer at the condition of their barracks. Most career military have had the opportunity of living and working in buildings that are in as bad as condition as the facility noted in the WaPo article for decades.

Seriously. More here.

I can do a stealth survey of the conditions at Brook Army Medical, but the last time I walked around the circuit, the troop housing looked pretty good, from the outside, at least. It’s all new. Meaning, built in the last decade, of course.

I think they’re still using “temporary” buildings from World War Two in places.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Major John Tammes emails:

So you have been to Fort McCoy?! The chaplains never tire of reminding us that the “temporary” chapel(s) were built in 1942 and meant to last for 2-5 years. They are still there… I won’t go into the housing for mobilizing and demobilizing troops there either, as it is late and I don’t want to get so angry I cannot sleep.

I’m sure that it’s somehow Bush’s fault that they weren’t replaced with permanent structures at the end of their projected life.