Photo by Joshua L. Wick The Maj. Walter Reed Memorial in front of Delano Hall was dedicated in 1966. Former President Dwight D. Eisenhower attended the ceremony. Eisenhower died in the old hospital (Bldg. 1) at Walter Reed, March 28, 1969. The bronze bust of Reed was done by American sculptor Felix de Weldon, whose most famous piece is the Marine Corps War Memorial.

‘‘The goal is not to lose ‘‘the things that represent the legacy, the care and what people have done here and how others — those who have received care — have responded with thanks and appreciation,” explained Sanders Marble, the former command historian at Walter Reed who now serves as a senior historian for the Army Medical Department.

‘‘Walter Reed has been around for more than 100 years; it’s important to preserve the legacy,” said Cathy Sorge, command archivist at WRAMC. ‘‘It’s important to record historical assets and where they end up in case you want to see them, and it’s a requirement of [2005 Base Realignment and Closure].”

What’s historic?

Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act covers historic preservation. According to Marble, when a property leaves federal control it has to go through a Section 106 process so that the current situation is assessed, whether anything is historic, particularly cultural or worthy of preservation.

The question is this: what’s historic at the 101-year-old Walter Reed installation, that includes a 14-story hospital with seven occupied floors, and 24 additional buildings.?

‘‘History is subjective,” Sorge said. ‘‘A lot of it is in the eye of the beholder,” Marble added.

Establishing the ‘‘period of significance” helps to determine guidelines for evaluating and nominating property and items as historic, the historian explained.

‘‘When did something historic happen? If it’s say a battle, and you know the days of the battle, that’s straight forward. Here, when the hospital opened in 1909 and will continue up until 2011, the question is: what part of that is historic?” Marble said.

‘‘Is it providing patient care? Is it doing research?” he asked. ‘‘There were Civil War troops that marched and fought on some of this land. Is it historic that a general died here, or a president died here?”

The rule of thumb is, if something is less than 50 years ago you have to really justify that something is exceptionally important, explained the historian. ‘‘Older than 50 years, you can just say that it’s important.”

Things to keep

Buildings, records, items such as paintings, and a landscape component, all undergo scrutiny for preservation, as resources from Walter Reed moves to either the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., or the new hospital being built at Fort Belvoir, Va.

Marble noted Delano Hall (Bldg. 11) for its significance to Army nursing along with its role in education and training for the medical center. The Old Red Cross Building (Bldg. 41) was cited as a physical manifestation of the volunteers that worked at the hospital from 1917 to the present.

‘‘Then we have Bldg. 1 (the old hospital), obviously, because...,” Marble said. ‘‘This is where it all began,” Sorge added.

The landscape surrounding the medical center is also up for historic consideration.

‘‘The grounds were landscaped in the 1920s and 1930s, not just to look nice, [and] appropriate for the Army’s flagship medical center, but to be part of the convalescence of the patients,” Marble said.

Maj. Walter Reed’s sword, a desk used by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, a silver communion set used by Reed, and more than a dozen portraits of former commanding generals of Walter Reed are included among the 400 historical items catalogued over the past five years. The list does not include a complete list of memorials. Still more historic items are either in use or hidden in the dark recesses of hospital files and closets. Marble said items like lab coats with ‘Walter Reed’ on the breast pocket are great things for a museum.

‘‘They tell the story of the medical center,” Sorge said. ‘‘The bed pans, not so much,” Marble said. ‘‘But, the lab coat definitely,” Sorge added

The history office named roughly a dozen or more government agencies, groups and institutions as players in the Walter Reed historic, preservation game. Marble said everyone who works at Walter Reed is involved.

Everyone plays a role

‘‘People [WRAMC staffers] know what they have better than we know what we have,” the historian said.

Offices and tenant organizations that move off the post will use a 210-day clearance checklist to ensure appropriate actions are taken for memorials such as busts, statues and plaques. The checklist also requires the proper handling of historic items, including art and photographs, to avoid loss. According to Bill Mason of the BRAC office, the Borden Institute, scheduled to leave Delano Hall at the end of September, and the National Cancer Institute, scheduled to leave its Building 1 space in December, are already using the 93-item clearance checklist.

In July, a pre-move survey team began assessing items included in the move to accurately estimate relocation costs, according to Randy Treiber, base transition coordinator. The team uses green stickers to indicate items moving, red stickers to indicate pieces not included in the move and yellow for things whose placement still needs to be determined.

In March, the BRAC office began hosting monthly meetings for Section 106 consulting parties. The command history office along with representatives of the D.C. Commission of Fine Arts, Department of State, General Services Administration, Advisory Council on Historic Preservation and others met in July to evaluate data gaps in identification efforts.

Quarterly meetings of the Walter Reed Local Redevelopment Authority have given District residents a voice in the decision making process for the approximately 62.5 acres going to the District of Columbia after the closure. Marble said the National Archives and Smithsonian may also be considered in the scramble for historical property from the post, since the institutions may end up providing a home for some of the items.

The LRA is tentatively scheduled to present its final proposal in the first quarter of FY 2011. With the State Department and General Services Administration the tentative holders of the two remaining portions of the installation, where does the rest of it go?

‘‘That’s my biggest concern,” Marble said. ‘‘That it’s all going to happen in a rush at the end.”

Sorge has drafted a tentative contingency plan to distribute items not named in the Walter Reed LRA’s final plan. She’s eager to get it in the hands of decision-makers.

‘‘People are thinking about the day-to-day but not about the future,” Sorge said. ‘‘The sooner we can get these things settled, the better.”