Thu, Aug 21, 2008 (2:05 a.m.)

Army officials are trying to move quickly to remove mold from the barracks that house wounded soldiers at Fort Sill in Oklahoma.

Soldiers said their complaints were ignored for months and that they were ordered not to talk about the mold. The Army took action only after soldiers complained to USA Today, which published stories about the problems Monday.

This is a shocking situation considering the problems exposed last year at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., where wounded soldiers were housed in substandard quarters filled with mold. Soldiers also complained of poor treatment by their supervisors and inadequate care.

The Army’s response was to improve the quality and treatment of injured soldiers with the creation of Warrior Transition Units. Those units, though, have been strained as the number of wounded soldiers has doubled from 6,000 to 12,000 in the past year.

In addition, soldiers still complain about how their supervisors treat them.

At Fort Sill, soldiers say they are subject to harsh disciplinary action for simple mistakes and have to comply with orders that fail to take into account their medical condition. For example, Staff Sgt. Michael Riley said he and others in his unit are required to show up for physical training (PT) at 5:30 a.m. twice a week. Riley, who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder along with back and brain injuries from blasts in Iraq, takes medications that leave him groggy.

“I’m still high as a kite, floating, driving down the road trying to get to PT, or I’m still half-asleep and I can’t wake myself up,” he said.

Army leaders told members of Congress last month that they were working to revamp the program. Lt. Gen. Michael Rochelle said, “It takes time to kill bureaucracies.”

The soldiers, however, don’t have time to wait for Army bureaucrats to sort this out. Defense Secretary Robert Gates should take care of this — immediately.