DOD Leaders Discuss Critical Troop, Family Health Care Needs

Military health care has improved troop survival, recovery and rehabilitation, but providers, patients, families and leaders must keep investing time, effort and communication, Defense Department leaders said today.

Clifford L. Stanley, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, and Deborah Mullen, wife of Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke on these issues to an audience of thousands at the 2011 Military Health System Conference opening session.

Stanley is a retired Marine Corps major general, and recounted his family’s experience with the military health system.

In 1975, Stanley was stationed at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., with his wife and their 3-month-old daughter when his family was the victim of a sniper attack. Stanley’s uncle was killed, and his wife was left paralyzed.

“I’m not a physician, but I was immediately introduced to the health care system in a unique way for us,” he said.
During the years that followed, Stanley said, his family learned a great deal about military health care, and experienced “a couple of close calls.”

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