In a huge blow to the region’s economy, a federal commission charged with choosing which armed forces bases to close decided Walter Reed Army Medical Center (named after the Civil War doctor and major at right) will likely admit its last patient soon. The closure, which includes the Northwest center as well as office space in Northern Virginia, means 9,000 jobs will go elsewhere.

The decision means that those jobs will shift to exurban bases, such as Fort Belvoir in Fairfax County, Quantico in Prince William and Fort Meade in Anne Arundel County. Those injured men and women returning from abroad will have to find care at an expanded National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda.

Also in peril is the National Museum of Health and Medicine, located on the Walter Reed grounds. Visit this weekend to see human remains and the near-barbaric medical tools of the Civil War era. You might not get another chance.

On the local side, many weighed in on what should be done with the 113-acre campus located between Georgia Avenue and 16th Street in Northwest. A federal center? Give the property to the city? Mixed-use development?

“We’ve got to act quick,” Councilman and mayoral candidate Adrian Fenty told the Post, clearly forgetting that when quick modifies a verb, it should have an ‘ly’ at the end. “If would be very bad to come out with a big federal office building on that site. . . . We need to act quickly [Whew! Nice save, Mr. Fenty!] so that whatever the community wants is at the front of the consideration line, regardless of whatever some congressperson from some other place in the country thinks should go there.”

It’s all speculation at the moment. The commission hands its report over to President Bush Sept. 8. He puts his two cents in, and then Congress will get its turn.