Steve Kagen: “Every physician, every nurse, everyone on the floor at Walter Reed is doing their personal best to take care of the…”

“Every physician, every nurse, everyone on the floor at Walter Reed is doing their personal best to take care of the soldiers, and they are getting great care. But the thing I find extremely upsetting, on the night of the State of the Union address, my wife, who is a nurse, was in town. She is president of the social organization for the spouse's club of the freshmen class, both Democrats and Republican; and she went to Walter Reed on a fact-finding tour to see that the soldiers were getting all the care and all the prosthetic devices that they required. Well, they gave her the company tour. They didn't give her a tour of Building 18. And come to find out, according to testimony revealed, that Lieutenant General Kevin Kiley knew about these conditions as far back as 2003, when one soldier reported that the conditions were extremely poor and he wasn't getting what he needed. So I have the opinion, as a physician, and having years of experience of caring for thousands of military veterans, that if they had our back covered during conflict, we must not let them down. We have got to cover their back when they come home.”