Ahh, but that was at the Death Star my friend--the Walter Reed of a bygone era. The era of the "Go for Green" daily lunch special, cockroaches scuttling across the floor of the tunnel connecting building 2 to the old hospital, and the too comfy seats of the Lawrence Joel Auditorium that tenderly invited an exhausted resident to visit Hypnos for a few sweet moments while interchangeable NCOs droned.
Our young friend will never know that Walter Reed. He will know only pain. The pain of never being able to find parking. The pain of vegetable quiche and carrot medley in the galley every Tuesday afternoon. The pain of the one-stop-shop.
My wife used to wear a light blue fleece over her scrubs after duty hours while on call at the old Walter Reed, while NNMC is still the only military hospital I've ever worked in where somebody got upset that I didn't wear a t-shirt under my scrub top. Unless things have changed significantly in Bethesda, the idea of creating a department esprit de corps fleece and going through official approval channels is a good one.
