Nomination of Anthony J. Principi to Be Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs: Hearing Before the Committee on Veterans' Affairs
by
United States Congress Senate
OCLC Number: (OCoLC)49898862 Excerpt: ...t is important to recognize the 30-year commitment of Senator Thurmond to this Veterans' Committee.Senator ...
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OCLC Number: (OCoLC)49898862 Excerpt: ...t is important to recognize the 30-year commitment of Senator Thurmond to this Veterans' Committee.Senator Thurmond. I organized it. [Laughter.]Chairman Rockefeller. You organized it.Senator Thurmond. And you have done a good job with it.Chairman Rockefeller. Well, thank you, sir. [Laughter.]Here comes Chairman Specter, and so we will now all have a round of applause for Senator Thurmond.[Applause.]Chairman Rockefeller. Senator Nelson--for whatever vagaries the Democratic party is involved with--is not yet officially a member of the committee, although he is, and so I have to ask unanimous consent that he be permitted to sit in here in full participation. Knowing that there is no objection, he will do so.Tony, because of your years of service to veterans at VA, here in the Senate where we know you very well from both places, and from the Transition Commission, I know I don't have to impress upon you the importance of the leadership role. Anytime you have that many employees, leadership is everything, absolutely everything, and you recognize that. Your history is long, your experience is long, and because of that you will come with an advantage. But you will also come with a higher bar of expectation from me, from Chairman Specter, from all of us. And that is as it should be because you are not new to the job. You will not have a learning curve as others might.I will be looking to you, Tony--I think it is all right to call you Tony, if you don't mind--to define what you believe the VA's mission is today. Now, we all say that and yet we often do not get a very good answer. Usually, it comes to the engraving above the entrance to the building. The mission, in fact, is greatly more complex than that and it is changing drastically. As the needs of veterans change, as veterans grow older, long-term care, all kinds of other things become more important. So I...
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