Colorado’s own Jim Nicholson announced his resignation as Secretary of the Veteran’s Administration on July 17 saying he had plans to return to the private sector. His life of commitment to excellence and public service, as well as his example as a man of principle, faith, and devotion serves as a model for all to admire and emulate.
Nicholson grew up humble and challenged. One of seven children on a tenant Iowa farm, all the Nicholson’s learned early about personal responsibility. Inspired and motivated especially by his mother, Jim worked hard and earned an appointment to West Point. He was an Army Ranger, paratrooper, and distinguished Vietnam veteran with eight years of active duty and 22 years in the Army Reserve, achieving the rank of colonel.
Jim’s passion for being the best he could be carried over to the private sector as well. Credited for “building the town of Parker”, Jim also developed “The Ranch” residential golf course community east of Broomfield.
Active citizenship is important to Jim, and never one to do things in a small way, Jim served as Colorado Republican National Committeeman from Colorado (one of three state representatives on the Republican National Committee), and was elected by his peers as it’s National Chairman from 1997-2001. President Bush appointed Nicholson, a devoted Catholic, Ambassador to the Vatican in 2001, and in 2005 the President called him home and nominated him to a cabinet position as Secretary of Veterans Affairs.
Nicholson inherited a national veterans healthcare system including 1287 facilities and nearly 250,000 employees providing care for 25 million veterans. To say the task is daunting would be a huge understatement.
At the time of Nicholson’s appointment, negotiations for a proposed new VA hospital on the Fitzsimons campus in Aurora were on the brink of collapsing. I was serving in Congress, had been on the VA Committee in the House, and with Fitzsimons in my congressional district had taken a very personal interest in the new hospital. I saw Nicholson’s nomination as a ray of hope as he was a committed veteran himself and a Coloradoan. In addition, he understood real estate transactions and development, which at that critical juncture was the biggest hurdle we faced. I called Nicholson twice while he was still in Rome, and he immediately took a personal interest in the Fitzsimons hospital. Many can be credited with getting that project back on track, but without Jim, it could not have been rescued. Veterans in Colorado will benefit greatly from the healthcare improvements at this new site for decades to come, and it will elevate the standard for delivery of service for the entire VA system.
Nicholson also inherited a bureaucracy burdened with entrenched habits and inefficiencies like all bureaucracies. Almost immediately upon being confirmed Nicholson had to deal with a billion dollar budget crisis, which he resolved with Congress in short order. He labored to improve wait times for veterans and he also had to deal with the tragic, unacceptable conditions at Walter Reed Hospital.
The measure of a man is not whether or not he ever had problems, but how he faced them. Just like he has done throughout his life, Jim Nicholson attacked problems and worked relentlessly to solve them as Secretary of Veterans Affairs.
With the announcement of this great and devoted American’s resignation, many Democrats passed on the normal decent congratulations and drew their long knives to attack Nicholson, President Bush, or both.
Wanna-be-the-next President, Barack Obama (D-Illinois) couldn’t resist a parting cheap shot and blatant pandering to the 25 million veteran voting constituency when he issued this statement: “The fact is, veterans have been right to be disappointed in Jim Nicholson’s leadership at VA… It is clear that Secretary Nicholson is leaving the VA worse off than he found it.”
Senator Obama, you have been in the Senate almost exactly as long as Jim Nicholson was at the VA. What exactly have you done for veterans other than be a critic?
Bob Filner (D-CA), who I served with during my time on the House Veterans’ Committee, now serves as its Chairman. He kicked the Secretary in the backside with this gem: “Democratic lawmakers won’t stand for it if Bush tried again to ‘appoint someone who’s a good ol’ boy.’”
If Jim Nicholson is a “good ol’ boy” then all who ever went into battle, whether on foreign soil or on Capitol Hill, would be priviledged to serve with one.
Chairman Filner, rather than berating a good and decent man who had nothing but the highest respect, admiration, and devotion to his fellow veterans, perhaps you would explain why the Democrats on your committee voted on July 19, 2007 to strip nearly a billion dollars of funding from pension benefits for wartime, elderly, indigent and severely disabled or house-bound veterans?
The Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, who is never one to pass up an opportunity to take a swing at the President said, “Secretary Nicholson’s resignation provides President Bush with an opportunity to break with the administration’s history of underfunding VA health care and work with Congress to meet the needs of America’s veterans.”
Underfunding? Perhaps the Speaker with the tongue of a cobra should examine the VA Funding facts:
Fiscal years ending Sept. 30
Source: US Budget: Table 5.2 - Budget Authority by Agency
As the above chart demonstrates, during the eight years of the Clinton Administration, VA funding increased 31.7 percent total in eight years. But, in only the first five years of the Bush Administration, the VA budget increased 49.6%. Furthermore, based upon the budget plan adopted by Secretary Nicholson, during the Bush years VA funding will increase more than 82% over the level inherited from Clinton ($47.442 billion to $86.545 billion).
During Nicholson’s tenure, he had the ability to influence four of these budgets directly (2006 - 2009), including the plan he leaves behind to follow. Funding for just those years increases 25.5 percent - almost as much as the entire eight years of Clinton. In actual dollars the contrast is even more dramatic: $11.4 billion to $17.6 billion.
It may not be enough spending to satisfy the Speaker, but if this Administration hasn’t done enough for our Veterans, how does she characterize the job done by her friends, the Clintons?
On February 23, 1910 President Teddy Roosevelt delivered a speech titled “Citizenship in a Republic” at the Sorbonne in Paris, France. Within his text that day was the following:
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
Jim Nicholson has stood in the arena all his life. Although not always the victor, he has come out on top far more often than not. Partisan cheap shots are pretty easy to spot, and reflect far more about the character of the messenger than they do about the target.
Instead of the Capitol Hill Democrats whose objectivity is clouded by personal or partisan self interest, look to the words of a fellow Colorado veteran who knows Nicholson well, and worked on behalf of Veterans with the Secretary. Tom Bock of Aurora served as National Commander of the American Legion, the largest of the Veteran’s Service Organizations, during Nicholson’s tenure at the VA. Like a good military man, Bock was direct, honest and to the point: “He was a good secretary, and we’ll miss him.”