Lyndon B. Johnson visited an ill, pajama-clad Richard M. Nixon during the 1960 campaign. President Harry S. Truman went to his first church service here after taking office. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the bill that established the Interstate highway system in 1956, while a patient here, according to John Pierce, a retired Army colonel and an expert on the history of the hospital. Eisenhower later spent the last 11 months of his life in the presidential suite, as his health declined, his wife, Mamie, living in a small room nearby.
So Walter Reed’s closing — scheduled for the end of August when the keys to its stately brick buildings will be given to the State Department and the District of Columbia — drew an emotional response from many gathered Wednesday to commemorate the occasion. Flags were folded and put away. Songs were sung. A sword was handed down, to symbolize the transition.
“These doors may close, the address may change, but the name, the legacy and, most important, the work and healing will endure,” said John M. McHugh, secretary of the Army, in a speech at the ceremony.
It was the end of an era for Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the principal hospital for soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, which next month will be moved to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., and to a new facility in Fort Belvoir, Va.
The hospital’s patients will be moved in ambulances one by one, and outpatients, currently about 430, many of whom live in housing in the Walter Reed complex, will be moved in cars and moving vans over two weekends in August.
Maj. Gen. Carla G. Hawley-Bowland, commander of the Army’s Northern Regional Medical Command, to which Walter Reed belongs, said the move was intended to reduce the number of facilities — three in the Washington area, including Walter Reed — in order to better fit the military’s needs. Treatment has improved significantly in the past two decades and today requires less inpatient care, and more outpatient capacity, something the new medical centers will have, the general said.
The center’s reputation took a hit in 2007, when The Washington Post published a series of articles exposing poor living conditions and excessive bureaucracy for soldiers at the hospital. In response, officials established a unit designed to assist troops in every stage of the recovery process.
Its medical care is among the best in the country, particularly in the area of prosthesis, which have improved significantly since the Persian Gulf war in 1991. General Hawley-Bowland said soldiers now had prosthetic arms that allow them to do push-ups and hold rifles, innovations that did not exist for patients in the past.
Joao Silva, a photographer for The New York Times who was wounded in a mine blast in Afghanistan last fall and has been treated in the facility, is now walking briskly on his prosthetic legs. He photographed the event for the newspaper.
Charles Dasey, a spokesman for the hospital, said the number of inpatients, currently about 150, will decline to about 50 by the time of the move. New patients, who arrived on a regular schedule Tuesday night, will begin to be diverted directly to Bethesda in early August, he said.
The ceremony, which concluded with parachutists swooping down on the hospital lawn with colored smoke trailing behind them, was a chance for everyone to come together before the move began, General Hawley-Bowland said. “This brings closure,” she said. “It’s a celebration of what Walter Reed has meant.”
Gen. John J. Pershing and Gen. Douglas MacArthur died here. In 1960, Nixon, haggard and thin with an infected knee, left the hospital against his doctors’ advice to take part in the first televised presidential debate, according to Mr. Pierce.
It grew from 80 beds to more than 2,500 during World War I. It now has a capacity of about 250, and serves approximately 150,000 soldiers, their family members and military retirees.
The refurbished Bethesda facility, to be renamed the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, will have a 340-bed capacity, Mr. Dasey said, and will be run by all branches of the military, not just the Army.
Patients with the most serious injuries will be taken there. The new Fort Belvoir hospital will have 120 beds.
Together, their capacity is enough to cover the current number of patients, Mr. Dasey said. Any surge in need will be handled, in part, by retirees being treated in civilian hospitals.
“This place carries a lot of memories,” General Hawley-Bowland said. She added, “My folks will take Walter Reed’s legacy along with them.”
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