As a matter of principle and pride, the United States owes first-class medical treatment and follow-up to members of America's all-volunteer military who are wounded in combat. Disgracefully, this has not been the case.

   On hearing the name "Walter Reed Army Medical Center," one is likely to envision a facility in which the troops receive the best of treatment. And most do. But 700 of the men and women who put their lives on the line in Iraq and Afghanistan, who answered when this nation called, have been treated, well, "shabbily" would be putting it nicely.

   The Washington Post brought this shame to light in reports detailing how Walter Reed outpatients, we are talking about severely injured veterans, were housed in a facility, called Building 18, fit for a slumlord. Leaky pipes, holes in the ceiling, a nonworking elevator (nice for the amputees), lack of heat, no lack of mold and a variety of wildlife (rodents, roaches, etc.) made life even more of a misery for the suffering vets.

   And substandard housing is the least of the troubles. The wounded vets were also subjected to bureaucratic nightmares: incomprehensible and lost paperwork, an impenetrable system of case mismanagement that left the physically and psychologically maimed without regular treatment, an unfathomable disability-determination process, an inability to provide basic communications and, overall, neglect and simple stupidity.

   Following the newspaper expose, the Pentagon moved into action. At a briefing Wednesday, Dr. William Winkenwerder, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, assured America that "several matters reported in the news media are serious matters (that) deserve immediate attention, and they are getting immediate attention." Even President Bush, according to his press secretary, was "deeply concerned." Bush ordered a probe.

   So, accommodations will be improved, staff will be increased, medics will be stationed where they should have been stationed, case managers will actually talk with the wounded and other corrections will be made. Let us hope that the chain of command and communication will also be fixed, along with the attitude that led to this situation in the first place.