I'm on a trauma surgery & critical care mailing list, where there's been quite a discussion, in detail, of the Walter Reed problem in a broader context. Many of the posters have been military medical officers.

Slightly edited, as he is better with a scalpel than a keyboard, :-) I'd like to repost the comments from someone often spoken of as the God of Trauma, a highly respected physician who is coauthor of the major reference books in the field.

my comments

1. The fired Commanding Officer at Walter Reed was a sacrificial lamb. His career is ruined by this knee jerk firing, when others should have been the focus of reprisials. He should be reinstated.
2. BRAC did make some good recommendations at the time, but those recommendations need to be reanalyzed in view of current war. Maybe other closures and consolidations are in order while expansions are in order in other areas. BRAC should have representatives from the civilian sector.
3. A new Military Medicine Commission must not be politicized, but must include representatives from critical care, trauma, emergency medicine, etc.
4. Many within the Military Industrial Complex are spending money on things NOT of major concern during the time of THIS war. We have had over 16,000 MAJOR open amputations during the last 5 years in Iraq and Afghanistan and spent about $100,000 on research in this area. The Army and Navy spent $100 million on research on Malaria treatment last year while only 25 military people got malaria, most from not taking their drugs. I do not say get rid of appropriate research and development, just keep it relative. Malaria is still the worldwide killer disease, and the military has done much to deal with it. Much of this effort, however, probably should shift to worldwide civilian organizations, to which appropriate military scientists can be detailed.
5. It is long time that military medicine had a DEPUTY Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs rather than several layers down having an Assistant Secretary several layers down.
6. Except for Special Operations it is long overdue time that the military medical services be FUSED for that is the way they work right now, and very effectively. Military Medicine as taught by Uniformed Services University for Health Sciences at Bethesda is ALL SERVICE and serves as a model of the direction military medicine should go. A 3-4 star general doctor should also represent ALL military medicine at the joint chiefs of staff level.Several other industrialized countries have, or are considering, such an organization for military medicine

I agree with most of this, and have posted on it in another thread. Only with his last point might I argue; Special Operations has done decently with regular service medical officers who volunteer for duty with them. In like manner, you don't want to assign a flight surgeon (i.e., a specialist in aerospace medicine) to a submarine and an underwater medicine specialist to a submarine, unless the individual is qualified in both -- I know one physician who does have such qualifications.