Will the Army ever learn good media relations techniques? Walter Reed as a case study

Military Review, May-June, 2008 by James T. Currie

At this point in the story, two things stand out clearly: Secretary of Defense Gates "got it"; he understood the problems, and much of the Army's leadership did not. For example, the same day that he fired Harvey, Gates was quoted as saying, "I am disappointed that some in the Army have not adequately appreciated the seriousness of the situation pertaining to outpatient care at Walter Reed. Some have shown too much defensiveness and have not shown enough focus on digging into and addressing the problems." (26)

Long before matters had reached this point, however, President Bush's office weighed in. He was "deeply concerned," said Press Secretary Tony Snow. Members of Congress also expressed concern. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked the Armed Services Committee to investigate the matter and several presidential contenders decried conditions at the facility. (27) But some folks in the Army--or recently part of the Army--still didn't seem to understand.

As if he were not listening and had not heard the statements of concern from the country's political leaders, former Secretary Harvey--perhaps understandably, given his fate--continued to place the blame on the news media, and not on those running Walter Reed or on himself for his poor choice of Weightman's successor. The Post's stories lacked balance, said Harvey. He then mirrored Kiley's fateful and incomprehensible detachment by asking, "Where's the other side of the story?" (28)

At a hearing before a congressional committee, Kiley issued a convoluted admission of responsibility of sorts: "I'm trying not to say that I'm not accountable," said the Surgeon General. Then a reporter asked him how he could have failed to know about problems that existed directly across the street from his quarters. In one of those four-second sound bites that so often become the emblematic video clips that make the evening news, Kiley's ironic detachment sealed his fate. "I don't do barracks inspections at Walter Reed," said the general. (29) While there might have been some hope for Kiley's survival before that moment, those eight words--featured with his photo on the front page of the next day's Post--signaled his demise. He uttered the words on Monday, 5 March 2007, and handicappers were betting that he would not last a week. They were right. On Monday, 13 March, Kiley announced he was retiring, having submitted his request to do so to acting Army Secretary Pete Geren the previous day. (30)

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According to the Post, Geren, a former Democratic Congressman from Texas, "had sought Kiley's removal in recent days." (31) Major General Gale S. Pollock, Kiley's deputy, was quickly named interim Surgeon General. Unfortunately, she, too, immediately had her problems with the press. (32)

At no time over the several weeks that this debacle took place did anyone representing the Army ever point out a factual error in the reporting. There were accusations of exaggeration, but never any concrete examples demonstrating that any reporter had written anything misleading or inaccurate--for instance, the fact that the byzantine bureaucracy has nothing to do with Army medicine. The profound inference that emerges from this and other aspects of the debacle is that the Army must be doing a terrible job of preparing its general officers to work with the press.