"IAVA applauds President-elect Obama and the transition team for making this historic selection. General Shinseki has a record of courage and honesty, and is a bold choice to lead the VA into the future. The President-elect has demonstrated an understanding of the urgency of the issues facing America's veterans by making this announcement early. General Shinseki is widely-respected, honest and experienced. He is a man that has always put patriotism ahead of politics, and is held in high regard by veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. IAVA looks forward to supporting him to implement the historic change that is needed at the VA.

As a wounded, decorated, combat veteran, and the first Asian American in US History to be a four-star general, General Shinseki, has the potential to be an effective and dedicated advocate for veterans of all generations.

This is a critical time for veterans. One in five veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are facing serious mental health injuries like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or depression. Wounded veterans are waiting months, sometimes years, to receive disability benefits. The struggling U.S. economy is hitting new veterans especially hard. And the new GI Bill, which will make college affordable to every veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, must be implemented by August 2009.

General Shinseki has a monumental task before him. To address these issues will require real leadership that encourages active VA outreach and transparency. We encourage General Shinseki to move quickly to add Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans to key positions in his senior staff.

President-elect Obama made veterans' issues a priority in his campaign, and Michelle Obama has called military families one of the issues she cares most about. We look forward to working closely with General Shinseki and the new Administration to ensure every veteran in this country gets the care and support they have earned."

General Shinseki is seen by IAVA and many others as a great choice. I especially appreciate President-elect Obama’s plain statement that he wanted to nominate someone “that was right” about the war. The main things I remember about serving in the Army he was the Chief of Staff were really about transformation. At that time I was just taking over a heavy cavalry headquarters troop and we were pretty scandalized about the thought of trading armored vehicles for wheeled ones - the Strykers and were in constant turmoil over organizational changes. As we continued to “build down” (really!) our organizations were growing leaner and leaner - to a degree that I think haunts units today. And then there was the beret - oh. my. gawd.

My take on him was that he said about the best and maybe one of the dumbest things I heard during that time. Best first - said in a farewell speech on leadership and reprinted on the back of “Soldiers” magazine, these words about leadership:

“You must love those you lead before you can be an effective leader, you can certainly command without that sense of commitment, but you cannot lead without it. And without leadership, command is a hollow experience, a vacuum often filled with mistrust and arrogance.”

But then he also said (and I have to paraphrase because I don’t have the exact quote at hand) about the way the Army would look in the black beret: ‘There are many ways to wear the patrol cap and there is only one way to wear the beret.’ Obviously, he never took a ride down North Avenue and looked at Soldiers headed into the motor pools on Monday morning. There are at least 300 different ways to put the beret on your head and they aren’t all good.

Now that I got that out of my system, I am looking forward to a forthright, brilliant, and circumspect leader like General Shinseki getting into the mix at the VA, with some fresh ideas and the resources that he’ll have - at least for a little while. It may even be more amazing to those that follow such things that he doesn’t come from QTC Contracting. It will be our job as watchdogs, advocates, and citizens to make sure that he has the resources he’ll need as wave after wave of Veterans land in his A.O. General (ret) Peake has at least pointed the ship in the right direction. Gen (ret) Shinseki will need to pour on the steam. One of his biggest challenges will be to continue to build on the gains made for the health of women Veterans. He’s described the VA system as a select club - it will be among his jobs to insure that it is not a boy’s club.