Bush Visits Injured Veterans in Texas

President Bush, left, watches as Marine Lance Corp. Matt Bradford, who lost his legs and his eyesight while serving in Iraq, climbs a rock wall during a visit to a physical therapy lab for wounded soldiers at the Center For The Intrepid at the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Thursday, Nov. 8, 2007. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) (Gerald Herbert - AP)

An agreement signed by the Pentagon and Veterans Affairs Department creates coordinators to oversee the medical care between the agencies.

The first 10 coordinators, scheduled to be hired by Dec. 1, will work at Walter Reed; the Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.; Brooke; and Balboa Park Naval Medical Center in San Diego.

According to the White House:

_Work is under way to set up a single disability exam to replace ones now required from both the VA and Defense Department.

_A new center for post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury has hired its first workers and moved into temporary offices near Bethesda.

_A single Web site is in development to allow members of the military to track their medical recovery.

_A new regulation to update the disability schedule for traumatic brain injury and burns will be ready soon for public comment.

The VA will begin two reviews that will help provide the information necessary to modernize veterans' disability system, Bush said.

"I want to make sure our men and women coming out of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq have a modern disability system, and that's what the studies are going to do," he said.

Bush's visit to the medical center came between fundraisers in Houston and San Antonio that raised $1.3 million for Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and the GOP's get-out-the-vote effort in the state.

In Houston, Bush attended a brunch at the mansion of Richard Kinder, chairman of Kinder Morgan Energy Partners. The second fundraiser was hosted by lawyer John Steen to help Cornyn in his race against Democratic state Rep. Rick Noriega.

The president found time in Houston to shake hands and be photographed with a half-dozen astronauts and their families at Ellington Field.

The astronauts, wearing their blue flight suits emblazoned with American flags and NASA insignia, returned to Earth on Wednesday from the space shuttle Discovery's 15-day mission.