President Biden spent Friday afternoon visiting wounded soldiers at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, outside the country’s capital.
Biden spent about an hour at the military hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, visiting five wounded soldiers and later visiting the hospital’s coronavirus vaccine site.
The trip represented the new president’s first visit to the hospital since taking office last week. Biden visited a Marine, three Army soldiers and a member of the Army National Guard, according to the White House.
Biden is no stranger to Walter Reed.
The president’s son, Beau Biden, a major in the Delaware Army National Guard, was treated at Walter Reed weeks before his death. He died in 2015 after a battle with brain cancer.
President Biden was greeted by two hospital staff with whom he spoke for a few minutes and thanked him for the care they gave their son in his “last days”.
After visiting the military, he visited a basketball gym at the hospital that was transformed into a COVID-19 vaccine center.
Biden also underwent surgery on Walter Reed for a brain aneurysm in 1988, when he was a senator representing Delaware.
Leaving the White House for the military hospital on Friday afternoon, Biden noted that he spent a lot of time at Walter Reed, including going there every Christmas as vice president to visit patients. He called the military he visited on Friday “true heroes” and said some of them were amputated.
“I spent a lot of time at Walter Reed,” Biden told reporters before leaving the White House. “They are great Americans, they are great people.”
Earlier on Friday, Biden met with economic advisers on his proposed coronavirus relief. He has not made comments focused on his political agenda and executive actions, as he has done on each of the previous days of the week, since taking office.
Biden is expected to sign more immigration-related executive actions on Tuesday.