Center’s focus: Mental health issues, severe brain injuries

Center’s focus: Mental health issues, severe brain injuries
By Jeffrey Schogol, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Saturday, June 07, 2008


BETHESDA, Md. — Defense leaders feel a "debt and a need and a requirement" to address the stresses troop feel from combat and what happens afterward, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Thursday,

"Combat changes people," said Marine Gen. James Cartwright said. "It changes the members of the service. It changes their families. It changes the communities they live in. And we have to acknowledge those changes. We have to address those changes."

Cartwright spoke Thursday at the groundbreaking for a new center to treat brain injuries and psychological wounds. The move is "overdue," he said.

"It is something that men and women in uniform deserve, not only from the current conflict, but from past conflicts," Cartwright said.

The National Intrepid Center of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury is slated to be completed in late 2009, according to a news release for Thursday’s event.

Money for the center is being raised by the Intrepid Fallen Heroes fund, a private charity that previously raised $60 million to build the Center for the Intrepid, a rehabilitation facility for amputees and burn victims at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, the news release said.
go here for more
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=55362

Bethesda plans on 500,000 patients a year

Naval Hospital Expansion Starts Soon
Steps Being Taken to Minimize Traffic Disruption in Bethesda


By Miranda S. Spivack
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 9, 2008; Page B01

The Bethesda naval hospital's multimillion-dollar expansion will get underway in the next two weeks as the military moves to consolidate medical operations in the area and create a world-class trauma center.



The Navy formally gave the green light to the project this week and, in a reversal, agreed to ask the Pentagon to consider paying for some road and Metro improvements. Initially, the Navy said that none of the $71 million in transportation projects around the National Naval Medical Center met the criteria for federal funding, but last week it signaled a willingness to change course.

The hospital's expansion, part of the Pentagon's base realignment and closure plan, known as BRAC, ultimately will double the number of annual patient visits to 1 million and will add 2,500 employees. Plans call for closing Walter Reed Army Medical Center in the District and moving much of the care of wounded soldiers to Bethesda.

Construction could start as soon as next month on the facility, which Pentagon officials said will be "the crown jewel" of military medicine. The project is expected to be completed by late 2011, and medical operations will be transferred in phases beginning early that year.

The expansion plans have caused anxiety among Montgomery County's leaders, who are concerned that already-jammed roads will become gridlocked around the hospital, which is just north of downtown Bethesda and across from the National Institutes of Health.

The Navy has asked the Pentagon to approve funds to help with traffic control and improve access to the Medical Center Metro station, which would include building a new entrance in front of the hospital with high-speed elevators and a tunnel beneath Route 355. It is not clear whether Pentagon brass will approve the plans, but Montgomery officials say they are optimistic, now that the Navy has agreed to request funds.

Officials also have been concerned about possible traffic tie-ups during two years of planned construction, but the project's manager said the Navy had taken several steps to limit jams.

"We are very sensitive about not having a negative impact on our community, which has been very supportive of our campus," said Ollie Oliveria, who is managing the project for the hospital. "We cannot say enough for the great support they have given us, and we don't want to do anything to jeopardize that. They are patriots all the way."

Phil Alperson, who is coordinating Montgomery County's efforts, said the Navy and the county "want to work together on this to make it work as smoothly as possible. We all want it to work.

You can't just plunk down 2,500 new employees and 500,000 new patient visits a year in the middle of an urban area and not address those traffic issues."
go here for more
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/08/AR2008050801926.html

Cpl. Kevin S. Mowl, born a hero, died a hero

DEAN J. KOEPFLER/THE NEWS TRIBUNEEmotions flood Staff Sgt. Kenneth Hoffman on Friday at the new North Fort Lewis Chapel during at a memorial for Cpl. Kevin S. Mowl, who died last month from injuries he suffered last year in Iraq.

Another Soldier gone Corporal was loved, admired by many
MICHAEL GILBERT; mike.gilbert@thenewstribune.com
Published: March 15th, 2008 01:00 AM

Fort Lewis paid its respects Friday to a soldier who struggled for seven months to overcome wounds he suffered when a bomb hit his Stryker vehicle last August.

It was a horrific blast, soldiers said. Three men on the truck died instantly, and four others were critically injured, including Cpl. Kevin S. Mowl.

The 22-year-old from Pittsford, N.Y., was evacuated to the United States and fought to recover from a traumatic brain injury and other wounds at Bethesda Naval Medical Center.

But the injuries proved too much. Although his family expressed opti- mism about his recovery in their Web diary, Mowl suffered a reversal and died Feb. 25 of septic shock following one of many surgeries he endured.

His unit, the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, gathered for a memorial ceremony Friday at the new North Fort Lewis Chapel, along with his parents, Harold and Mary, and sister Carlene, from New York.

“We visited Kevin here at the base about three times before he was deployed into Iraq,” said Harold Mowl, speaking through a sign-language interpreter.

“We have many good memories of him while we visited here,” he said, “and we have very good memories of our lives with him.”

Mowl is the superintendent of the Rochester, N.Y., School for the Deaf, where the soldier was a beloved visitor during midtour leave last year. Growing up as the hearing son of deaf parents, he knew sign language and told students at the school about his travels and experiences in the Army.
go here for the rest
http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/story/309754.html

In most of their stories you see that they were doing something good for people even before they put on their uniform and most of the time, they were doing it when they were out of their uniform too.

“He was thinking about going back to teaching, or getting into some area where he could help with world peace and conflict resolution,” Mowl said. “He was thinking about both of those options, but either way he probably would have gone back to school.”

Army Spc. Kevin Mowl dies after feeding tube breaks

Soldier dies 6 months after being hurt in Iraq

The Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday Feb 26, 2008 12:50:37 EST

PITTSFORD, N.Y. — A western New York soldier wounded six months ago in an explosion in Iraq has died in a military hospital in Maryland.

Army Spc. Kevin Mowl of the Rochester suburb of Pittsford was 22 when he died Monday at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda.

Mowl suffered multiple broken bones and a head injury Aug. 2 when a roadside bomb flipped his vehicle in Baghdad. Three others died, and 11 soldiers and an interpreter were injured.

President Bush presented Mowl with a Purple Heart and a Presidential Medallion at the hospital in December.

Mowl recently suffered a serious infection after part of his feeding tube broke and perforated his intestines.
go here for the rest
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/02/ap_6monthsafter_022608/