For Shinseki, Vets Before Reporters

Last Friday, I traveled to Duke University in Durham, N.C., for dedication of a memorial to Duke graduates who lost their lives in action since WW II, including the best company commander I ever had, Marine Maj. Corky Ram, where Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki was the featured speaker.

VA press secretary Katie Roberts promised me some time with Shinseki after his speech, but I - and other the reporters - had to wait for more than an hour after the ceremony for a chance to talk with him.

Why? The answer is simple - Shinseki says the VA needs to make taking care of vets a priority, and at Duke he showed that job begins at the top.

While some top government officials might head for the nearest TV camera, Shinseki spent the hour after his speech taking the time to talk with veterans and their families, and then finally turned to the press, many of who, Roberts noted, had already decamped.

I did not mind the wait at all - it's better to watch leaders living up to their promises rather than to hear those promises.

Talking with Shinseki - who lost part of his right foot during his second Vietnam tour and then went on to serve as Army Chief of Staff from 1999 to 2003 - helped me realize how much the Army has changed in its attitude toward wounded warriors since the Vietnam War.

Today, the Army goes out of its way to reassign wounded soldiers to line outfits, but in the 1970s, Shinseki told me that about the only assignment he could wangle was a job teaching English at West Point - if he first completed his Masters in English literature.

Duke, Shinseki told me, was "kind enough to take me in," but said in his speech that he found Duke's English Department a real challenge.

I asked him what he wrote his thesis on. Shinseki waved his hand at the Duke chapel which has a distinctly medieval cathedral architectural motif, and he replied "Gothic imagery."

Photo by Bob Brewin