WASHINGTON – President Biden spent six grueling months at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, over 30 years ago, battling two brain aneurysms. In 2015, he was in the hospital again when his son, a major in the National Guard, lost his fight against brain cancer.
On Friday, Biden returned once again to the extensive military medical facilities, where troops with some of the most serious injuries on the battlefield are treated and rehabilitated – this time for visits with wounded warriors as commanders in chief of the nation. Biden’s visit to the hospital – and his private conversations with patients, their doctors and their families – is a rite of passage for presidents. And in less than two weeks of his presidency, the White House’s short trip offered the new Oval Office occupant a reminder of the costs of war and the consequences of the decisions he may be called upon to make.
“I spent a lot of time at Walter Reed,” said Biden as he left the White House for the visit. “They are great Americans. They are great people. “
The president’s public grief over his son’s death made the visit to the hospital especially moving. Beau Biden was a major in the Delaware National Guard and was assigned to Iraq as a lawyer for one year during his tenure as Delaware’s attorney general.
Young Biden died in late May 2015, after battling cancer for almost two years. His father cited the emotional impact of his son’s death as one of the main reasons he decided not to run for president in 2016. He referred to the personal tragedy when he met with hospital leaders.
“You did a lot for my family,” said Biden during part of the presidential visit captured by cameras. “My son Beau, after a year in Iraq, came back with glioblastoma, you took care of him for the past few days, with a lot of grace and dignity.”
Biden also mentioned once that he, then a Delaware senator, was a patient in the hospital in the 1980s, recovering from two brain aneurysms that threatened to interrupt his political career.
The president noted that he used to visit the hospital during his eight years as vice president, a time, he noted, when wars around the world took many more injured men and women there.
“As vice president, I would come here, my whole family, we would spend every Christmas day, here all day,” he said. Noting the reduction in combat around the world, he added: “The good news is that there are not many people here today. There was a lot at that time. “
As a presidential candidate and before that as vice president, Biden expressed deep reservations about the use of military force around the world. In the election campaign, he promised to “end the eternal wars”, a phrase he used to describe the decades-long conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Introducing Lloyd J. Austin III as his nominee for defense secretary last month, Biden said the retired general shared his views on the need to avoid war.
“We need your first-hand knowledge of the immeasurable cost of war and the burden it represents for our service members and their families to help end eternal wars and ensure that the use of force is the last tool in our box. tools, the last tool used to protect our national security, not the first, ”said Biden.
The president said he feels connected to the men and women who are in the army, in part because of his own son’s military service. And in his new role, he will certainly be faced with decisions that will endanger troops.
Mr. Biden visited five amputees who were retired from military service. He also inspected a converted basketball gym at the hospital that had been turned into a coronavirus vaccine site.
Biden’s predecessor made several visits to soldiers wounded in Walter Reed. But the most striking image of former President Donald J. Trump at the hospital was his visit for treatment after being diagnosed with Covid-19 in the final months of his term.
In addition to releasing a short video from inside the hospital while he was ill, Trump also demanded a brief trip in his entourage, passing by supporters who were gathering on his behalf outside the hospital, a trip that was heavily criticized by medical experts who said O Mr. Trump unnecessarily risked spreading the disease to his security posting.
Biden’s visit on Friday was less dramatic. He landed on the Marine One helicopter after a short flight from the southern lawn of the White House and returned less than two hours later.