The Armed Forces Retirement Center

Wow, let me tell you how sad I am to talk about this. On Fri March 12th 2010, I went to the Armed Forces Retirement Center in Washington DC. First off I was so sad to see the hall ways poorly lit, the smell of urine and poop in the air and a staff that was no where to be found. Wait I may have just gone on the wrong day or something but no, when my wife was is school for Nursing she did a residency there, she said that the residents said the staff hit them that they where not always given their meds on time, that when they asked for baths that the staff would tell them that they would get them when they where ready.

I don't know about you but I am so angry about this, these people are our hero's, these people are vets from WWII, Korea, Vietnam what are we doing letting them rot like this. There are residents that are frozen stiff from the staff not helping them properly exercise, come on, if you want to take the job than do the job. I can go on for hours on how pissed I am about this, I have contacted my congress man and I suggest you do the same.

I think that they should be doing random inspections of the place to make sure it stays up to health codes, and the code of honor. They need to reassess who is funding it and how they are spending their money. You see the US Forces pay for this place, it is not a government agency, its not part of the DOD, or the VA. It is self served for the service member. They take 50 cents from every ones pay check, in the Army that's about $800,000.00 a month and that's just the Army. They also take the residents retirement checks and use that to fund it. When I was there I would say I saw about 100 residents, these are the people that I went to help them down to the rec room to talk and have lunch with. I spent my free time off work away from home to see them and talk to them. You know 90% of all older people just want someone to talk to, we cannot stand by, they cannot be ignored anymore, we have to do something to improve their quality of life it is our duty to them.

Please if you have the time go visit a Vet, they love the time.