i wish we didn't NEED this facility AT ALL

But I must agree with Staff Sgt. Ramon Padilla
Screw the expenses," he said. "Do what you have to do to help soldiers recover better and to have a healthy life."
But we DO need this facility and we owe these men and women AND their families the right to live 'normal' healthy lives (at the VERY LEAST)

For War's Wounded, Space to Heal
At New Walter Reed Center, Amputees Try to Readjust to Life in or Out of Battle


By Steve Vogel Washington Post Staff Writer
With the fanfare of military music and a jump by paratroopers from the 101st Airborne Division scheduled to mark the event, the Army will open an amputee center today at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in an attempt to better rehabilitate the troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan who have lost arms and legs.
The $10 million state-of-the-art center at Walter Reed, whose campus is set to close in 2011, features virtual reality rehabilitation equipment, a gait laboratory to help veterans with prosthetics walk and run and a two-story rock-climbing wall -- all tailored to get troops back on active duty or on with their lives as civilians........