The military hospital where President Eisenhower and General MacArthur breathed their last is officially set to close. Walter Reed, which opened in 1909, only truly became a household name in 2007 after the Washington Post ran a Pulitzer Prize–winning series of articles detailing appalling living conditions and interminable waits for veterans and active troops. (The hospital treated 18,000 soldiers serving in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.) Care did improve soon after the articles were published, but a government commission two years ago decided that the facility was just too old to maintain. Now looks like the District of Columbia wants to turn part of the campus into a shopping center.
