OT: The Hotel Aftermath, Inside Mologne House, the Survivors of War Wrestle With Military Bureaucracy

[url]http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/18/AR2007021801335.html[/url]

The Hotel Aftermath
Inside Mologne House, the Survivors of War Wrestle With Military
Bureaucracy and Personal Demons

By Anne Hull and Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, February 19, 2007; Page A01

The guests of Mologne House have been blown up, shot, crushed and
shaken, and now their convalescence takes place among the chandeliers
and wingback chairs of the 200-room hotel on the grounds of Walter
Reed Army Medical Center.

Oil paintings hang in the lobby of this strange outpost in the war on
terrorism, where combat's urgency has been replaced by a trickling
fountain in the garden courtyard. The maimed and the newly legless sit
in wheelchairs next to a pond, watching goldfish turn lazily through
the water.

But the wounded of Mologne House are still soldiers -- Hooah! -- so
their lives are ruled by platoon sergeants. Each morning they must
rise at dawn for formation, though many are half-snowed on pain meds
and sleeping pills.

In Room 323 the alarm goes off at 5 a.m., but Cpl. Dell McLeod
slumbers on. His wife, Annette, gets up and fixes him a bowl of
instant oatmeal before going over to the massive figure curled in the
bed. An Army counselor taught her that a soldier back from war can
wake up swinging, so she approaches from behind.

"Dell," Annette says, tapping her husband. "Dell, get in the shower."

"Dell!" she shouts.


Full article here:

[url]http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/18/AR2007021801335.html[/url]