For those who are familiar with Retired General Shinseki, there isn’t any doubt that his decision to resign was solely based on what is best for his Fellow Veterans and his Country. The Republicans and some Democrats in Congress who piled on to Mr. Shinseki, blaming him for a problem that dates back decades, they are the true inept “reprobates,” not General Shinseki. Mr. Shinseki did more to revamp the Veterans Administration since being named Secretary, than all the people before him, dating back four decades plus.
From our engagement in Vietnam and throughout the years that brought us Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, one lasting as long as eight years and the other, Afghanistan that is thirteen years and counting, the over-strained Veterans Administration that numbered in excess of twenty-two million in 2001, added another two million from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
The despicable Republicans blocked a 21 billion Veterans Bill three months ago claiming that the Veterans Bill would “bust” the budget, but this week proposed a 600 billion tax cut for big business. Republicans who are always advocating War and sending other people’s sons, daughters, fathers and mothers to fight, get wounded or die, they are the obstructionist for so much that ails America, but yet, with the help of the Media, other people always have to end up being the “Scape-Goat” for the GOP wantonness.
And such was the case for a brave man, General Rick Shinseki, that served his country in battle; was wounded; stood up to former President George W. Bush and was humiliated for publicly questioning Iraq Policy during the Bush Administration.
[As the words left President Barack Obama’s lips on Friday that he had accepted the resignation of retired Army Gen. Eric Shinseki as secretary of Veterans affairs, a pained groan emerged from a crowd of troops, veterans and civilians who’d gathered around television sets at the Pentagon.
His resignation does not fix the intractable problems that have plagued the Department of Veterans Affairs for decades, Shinseki supporters said; perhaps it will make them worse. Particularly galling to some in uniform was that Shinseki was well known for loving the soldiers he commanded and that he had risen to become the chief of staff of the Army, the highest-ranking Asian American in U.S. military history.
“GEN(R) Rick Shinseki gave his all in the service of his nation. He will be missed,” Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, tweeted upon learning the news.
Retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey, a friend of Shinseki, said that Shinseki was right to resign because he, rather than the VA’s problems, had become the focus. But McCaffrey said it would be hard for anyone to make much headway in solving the VA’s problems before November’s midterm elections. Politics will hinder real change.
“I would be surprised if you could find someone in military who doesn’t look up to him. But that doesn’t mean that he is a political infighter that would deal with Congress, the media and these semi-independent systems in the VA,” McCaffrey said.
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, like Shinseki a Vietnam veteran, struggled Friday while in en route to Singapore to answer what should happen to Shinseki, just hours before the president’s announcement.
“I leave the politics of it to others. But I’ve made it very clear where I am as a veteran on this, where I am as a secretary of defense _ this has to get fixed and this is as high a priority as this country has, taking care of its veterans,” Hagel told reporters. But he also had kind words for Shinseki. “General Shinseki is a war veteran, disabled; lost part of his foot in Vietnam. And I think he understands . . . what our veterans deserve.” [Miami Herald]
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