First Meeting:

For nearly three hours earlier this week, service members as well as family members and veterans took turns at the microphone during a public meeting at Walter Reed Medical Center, telling a nine-member independent review panel about their experiences. The Pentagon has charged the panel, led by former Army Secretaries Togo West and Jack Marsh, with making recommendations to improve the outpatient care and bureaucratic tangles raised to public consciousness first in the Washington Post last month. At this first hearing, panel members heard not only from aggrieved veterans and friends, but also from veterans who praised the medical care afforded by Walter Reed medical personnel. (Independent Review Group Web site.)