 To Germany From Alaska to Puerto Rico All over the world the United States Army is on the alert to defend our country you the American people against aggression This is the big picture an official television report to the nation from the United States Army Now to show you part of the big picture here is Sergeant Stewart Queen War never ends all at once the last vestige of it fading with the echo of the guns When the battlefield is silent the long slow tasks of repair and readjustments begin and Like victory itself These tasks too are accomplished with the qualities tested and celebrated in war Courage Perseverance and more courage Today the nation is adjusting itself to the peace it won in Korea and Repairing the damage that costly campaign brought Nowhere is this effort toward rehabilitation any stronger or more determined than in the general hospitals of the United States Army Many men who fought are waging another battle a Battle to win back their health and pick up their lives where they left off months or years ago Before they gave some part of themselves to the fight for freedom Today, I would like to take you to one of these hospitals To the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC Walter Reed Army Medical Center is an impressive place When you visit its best-known component the Walter Reed Army Hospital Located eight miles north of the White House on an old Civil War battlefield site near the Maryland line You are struck by the stately Georgian beauty of its buildings and by the vast magnificence of its grounds Covering 320 tree shaded acres Walter Reed is the largest and best known of the Army's medical centers But the story of an army hospital is not to be found in its buildings or its grounds its size or its statistics However impressive Walter Reed's story today, which you see immediately as you walk through is the story of the man who inhabited The men who set sunning themselves on its spacious lawn The community of men bound together by common experiences and now by a common purpose Walter Reed's soldier patients have come here by different routes Behind them lies Korea and the destruction of war. This was the way home for many Way home was a long one if you had to crawl some of it on your belly Dragging a useless part of your body behind you. These are some of the roads that stretch back from Walter Reed The cold ditches in the bleak Korean mountains, which the wounded travel slowly until help could come Sitting in the sun on the grassy slopes of the hospital's well-kept lawn Breathing the air and talking the talk of peace the roads of war these men traveled are far behind them now Some came here by another road The long road stretching from the enemy's prison camps in the north It um began again at the end of that road for American soldiers who had lived through an imprisonment unique in all the history of modern war Freedom began and for many the hope of new health The chance to be cured of old wounds and new illnesses which began in prison Men whose bodies had been weakened by malnutrition and whose minds had been assaulted by an intense unceasing bombardment of lies Designed to split them from their homeland could begin now the fight to regain strength and emotional rest With the battlefield and the prison camp far behind The men who lived through both came back their return was an occasion of great joy Who returned the long trip back was not quite over the struggle for health and well-being not yet won But these the next stop would be Walter Reed and the army's other medical installations to recuperate in pleasant surroundings Under conditions of peace and with the help of the best equipment and facilities a grateful nation could provide its valiant fighters Hospitals understandably enough are not among soldiers favorite hangouts But after the dirt and grime of battle the dreary endlessness of prison camp The garden setting of Walter Reed is very impressive to many weary soldiers Private first-class Robert Walton is one of those so impressed a 25-year-old former student from Wilmington, Delaware He spent 28 months in a red prison camp in North Korea after his capture the first spring of the war at Monson At Walter Reed while he relaxes and enjoys sights He hasn't seen for so long. He is steadily recovering from the debilitating effects of prison The malnutrition and undernourishment which sapped his strength Along with him hundreds of soldiers with all kinds of wounds and illnesses are traveling the same road to recovery Walton is impressed by the efforts that are made along that road to recovery as he is by the landscapes at Walter Reed Since it is not easy to impress a soldier who has seen the things he has seen He is a good guide to show us around The soldier patient today is struggling to overcome the wound or the illness that has stricken him As has his allies in this struggle the very best medical knowledge that man has learned in the laboratories of Institutions like Walter Reed medical research has advanced by great strides in the last few years Because of the development of revolutionary techniques and equipment to combat disease and illness Battle casualties in the Korean War actually resulted in only about half as many deaths as battle casualties in World War two Lives which ones might have been wasted or only partly lived are today restored and renewed By medical knowledge, which has been carefully gathered and translated into tools which forge health This is the array of machinery which stands behind the ailing soldier at Walter Reed today a Vast and complicated collection of machines which do for a sick or wounded man What he cannot do for himself and which represent the latest and the best in medical discovery But medical knowledge advanced though it might be can only be part of the story of recovery The best in equipment the best in techniques can only be aids crutches for the disabled The substantial part of the effort toward rehabilitation rests with the soldier himself With his capacity for courage and unceasing effort with his determination to continue the fight For with the soldier patient in the army hospital the war a part of it still goes on The result of war still lives in a weakened lung a missing limb and The soldier must bring to the fight against it the same personal skills that he carried with him in battle Just as he once threw everything that was in him into the study and prosecution of war So now he must apply all his effort to the process of recovery The battlefield is different now the victory that is sought is of another kind But some of the weapons that are used are the same patience courage perseverance these are the good soldiers personal weapons and Never are they more sorely needed than in the long fight back from the wounds of war to the health of peace a Secluded annex at Forrest Glen, Maryland four miles from the main hospital is an important part of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center Forrest Glen had been an exclusive girls college for 50 years when the army bought it in World War two Today it still retains the unique charm it accumulated during its academic years Architecturally this charm is reflected in an interesting and very assortment of styles a Sense of old world attitudes pervades Forrest Glen But behind these buildings of other eras Projects are an operation which represent the most advanced knowledge in applied medicine Projects such as that inside the prosthetics laboratory where important and world-renowned research on artificial limbs is conducted and The audiology and speech correction center where deaf and patients learn to hear again But in addition to housing some of the medical center's most important research projects Forrest Glen is also a recuperative hospital Here Walter Reed patients not yet ready for duty or not yet well enough to return to civilian life Relax in an atmosphere of rolling hills and winding walks Woods and streams Here two men who have mastered once more the fundamental skills such as walking now tackle more difficult projects In a special course amputee patients learn all over again how to drive a car and how to take care of one Changing a tire presented no special problems to Corporal Robert Jetty when he drove a car in his hometown of Holyoke, Massachusetts But that was before he lost an arm Now that same act requires considerably more skill But skill is something a man acquires through trial and error and constant practice More trial more error more practice Changing a tire with one arm doing the work of two can be done Corporal Jetty and his fellow classmates are able to do it easily at the end of their 12 hours of special instruction The automobile these men learn to drive is fitted with special driving devices for amputees Upon completion of the course which usually results in a successful examination by state authorities These patients receive a driving permit But the permit can only suggest the most important result of this training The regaining of confidence by men who have had to work hard and steadily at readjusting their lives No concessions to safety rules are made Operating a car on the public highways is a serious business and no more or no less is expected from the amputee driver than from anyone else But in actual fact Instructors have found amputee students exceptionally alert. They usually become very good drivers an Indication of the intensity they bring to their struggle for a normal life Corporal Jetty is justifiably proud of his driving ability and he doesn't mind showing it off He drives skillfully without nervousness confident that he can handle his machine through the worst that traffic can bring If you ride with him you share his confidence The highways won't be any more dangerous with Corporal Jetty back at the wheel of his car In fact the highways would be decidedly safer if all drivers were as good and as careful as Jetty Nowhere in the nation today can you find more heartening manifestations of the darkness in the American spirit Then on these acres of hospital ground where men who have lost part of their bodies are Grimly determined to make their lives as good as they were before or perhaps a little better Sergeant Alfonso Spencer from Appomattox, Virginia lost an arm when he was with the combat engineers in the early months of the war in Korea He was a good man with a rifle then and now he's a crack shot again Even though he's got a hook where his left hand used to be What else can you see as you walk along the roads of Forest Glen Walter Reed's convalescent Hospital? Well, this is an army post so there's bound to be a ball diamond somewhere on it And if there's a ball diamond there are bound to be men playing ball It may be a ball game such as you've never watched before The players may not have all the standard number of legs and arms affixed to their bodies that a ball game usually demands The ball may not get hit as far The running may not be as fast You may feel a strange sensation in your throat as you watch it But for sheer spunk, it's the match of anything you've ever seen Golf clubs like baseball bats and the other equipment of the sportsmen can also be important convalescent tools for handicapped men struggling for a normal life Hospitalized men are on guard constantly against loneliness and boredom Entertainment is important and the hospital provides what it can In a spot They put some time on the rear Enchant and a song Keep a sport maybe Just a check a millionaire And big B Entertainment is a relative thing with many forms and facets There is a special kind of humor to be found among men who must learn to accept and live with disability And from these grim conditions create entertainment for themselves There is a special pleasure in the most important entertainment of all a new and special kind of significance placed on the fundamentals of living There is a special strength in the bonds that unite suffering men with those who are important to them And there is a very special kind of therapy indeed in this form of enjoyment Even a courageous man often needs more than his courage alone strong minds strong spirits Strong determinations and resolutions Strong men can be strengthened even more by the quiet effects of love and devotion Patience and the willingness to share whatever burdens must be born The battlefields where Americans fought are quiet now But the traces of war still remain on the grounds and in the wards and in the halls of Walter Reed But not only the tragic effects of war deeds of valorous men Individual acts of heroism These are part of war two and they are part of the Chronicle of Walter Reed that passes through the office of its commander Major General Leonard D. Heaton Attention to orders headquarters 8th United States Army APO 301 11 June 1953 General orders number 561 section 1 Award of the Distinguished Service Cross By direction of the president under the provisions of the act of Congress approved 9 July 1918 and Pursuant to authority and AR 645 the Distinguished Service Cross for extraordinary heroism and action is awarded in the name of the commanding Commander-in-Chief Far East to 2nd Lieutenant Henry R. Walls, Jr. Infantry United States Army Lieutenant Walls a member of an infantry company Distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism and action against the enemy in the vicinity of Yu-Jae Nini, Korea on 16 April 1953 Lieutenant Walls led his support elements through an artillery and mortar barrage To a point where a friendly patrol was involved in a firefight with a numerically superior hostile force upon reaching the scene Lieutenant Walls immediately set up an effective base of fire and Moved among his men directing their fire and shouting words of encouragement When the grenade wounded him so that it was impossible for him to walk Lieutenant Walls crawled forward to a position from which he could exercise better control of his men But he was again wounded by enemy burp gun fire and was rendered incapable of movement When the hostile forces overran the area Lieutenant Walls was soon to be dead and enemy soldiers removed his pistol and personal possessions When the battle turned in friendly reinforcements arrived Lieutenant Walls was still unconscious But regained consciousness and ordered the men to leave him until all other wounded had been evacuated The extraordinary heroism exhibited by Lieutenant Walls on this occasion Reflects great credit upon himself and is in keeping with the finest traditions of the military service Entered the federal service from the District of Columbia by command of Lieutenant General Taylor Paul D. Harkins Brigadier General Chief Staff Lieutenant Walls It's a great honor to award you the distinguished service cross Bravery like Lieutenant Walls exists after the battle is over and General Heaton as Walter Reed's commander sees a great deal of it Courage is a commodity. We are very familiar with here at Walter Reed. It is not restricted to the battlefield It is indeed found in great quantity among men who are struggling to regain their health and to Readjust themselves to a normal life after the devastating effects of wounds or illness We're doing everything within our power to recondition the soldier patients here to the full life They live before they came to us at Walter Reed But all our efforts would be fruitless without the courage and determination of the patients themselves The willingness to work to accept what must be accepted and to smile in the face of adversity a treat What so characterizes the American soldier the quality of courage is elusive What is it this stuff of which heroes are made? This hallmark of valor this weapon with which battles are won and wars and the nation is protected What is it? Walter Reed's commander has suggested its principal component parts the willingness to work hard to overcome handicap To accept what must be accepted to smile in the face of adversity The qualities in short of the good American soldier which endure after the guns of war are still and the work of peace and Readjustment begins at institutions like Walter Reed Army Medical Center That is the story of the soldier patient in the army's hospitals today This is sergeant Stewart queen inviting you to be with us next week When we will give you another look at the big picture your United States Army in action The big picture is a weekly television report to the nation on the activities of the army at home and overseas Produced by the signal core pictorial center Presented by the US Army in cooperation with this station You can be an important part of the big picture You can proudly serve with the best equipped the best trained the best fighting team in the world today the United States Army