Chet Edwards For Congress

Waco Trib Editorial: Filling aching void at VA hospital

Waco Tribune-Herald | Monday, May 18, 2009 |
By JIM McKEOWN Guest column

Four years ago the sprawling campus was on a death watch, wounded and bleeding. Now, the Waco Veterans Affairs Medical Center is back and ready for work.

The developments far exceed the biggest one — creation of the Center for Excellence for Research on Returning War Veterans. They include $49 million worth of construction and renovation shepherded through by Congressman Chet Edwards.

Included are measures that will ease the pinch at the downtown VA Regional Center by shifting some records to the hospital campus. Meanwhile it is expanding existing programs, having added 100 positions since 2006 and now employing 822 people.

Gone is the brainstorming about unused space — suggestions made here about intergovernmental or private-public arrangements. No, the VA needs the space for its own purposes, and every building but one will be occupied in two years.

This only makes sense, as demands on the U.S. military remain intense on two fronts overseas. At least one in five veterans faces the very psychiatric challenges for which the hospital was established.

Now we shall hope for a day when war’s demands abate.