Good-bye Walter Reed

     Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the Army's flagship hospital, is closing after 102 years.  The closure ceremony is today, although most of the move will take place in August.  It is combining with the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md and a new community hospital in Fort Belvoir, Va.  The Bethesda facility is to be named the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.  On September 15, the new tenants take over at the current Walter Reed:  the State Department and the District of Columbia.
     You may have read in a previous post of mine that I am a WRAIN drop...I got my BSN education at Walter Reed and then worked there 3 more years in renal transplant and also on the gastrointestinal ward.  Two of our three children, Ben and Kate, were born there. Ben was baptized at the Walter Reed Memorial Chapel.  Dean had a couple of minor surgeries at Walter Reed, plus remembers tearing frantically around the hospital at 4 in the morning to get me admitted when Ben was insistent on being born NOW!  Walter Reed is an important part of our family's memories. We lived in the D.C. area for 7 years.
     A small NICU unit was located on the second floor just above the main entry shown in the photo.  I remember, as a nursing student, standing at those windows and watching King Hussein of Jordan entering the hospital just below me. 
     There was a beautiful rose garden located just south of the hospital where Jason saw clowns and bravely fought off  "snakes" early one dewy Easter morning.
     President Dwight Eisenhower died at Walter Reed.  Also John J. Pershing and Douglas Macarthur.  Foreign leaders were treated as well, such as King Hussein of Jordan and the Shah of Iran.
     Another important place in history is now consigned to memory; at least to mine.