Yet Another VA Secretary

We have a new Department of Veterans Affairs secretary, the 10th acting or permanent VA secretary in the past 10 years.

Dennis McDonough has a degree in Foreign Service. He was an aide on the Committee on Foreign Affairs. Later he was a national security adviser and chief of the National Security Council. He’s a public policy professor at Notre Dame’s school on global affairs and was a fellow at Carnegie’s International Affairs program under the International Peace endowment. He used to be President Barak Obama’s White House chief of staff.

Those who inspired him in early life included a football coach who’d served in World War II, troops and wounded warriors he’d met, as well as his grandfather who’d been a Marine. His wife co-founded Vets’ Community Connections, a group that assists veterans and their families.

OK, I’m concerned.

I see a lot of security and international affairs in that bio. In multiple online versions of his bio, the word “veterans” doesn’t come up once. Except for his wife’s work, I’m not seeing any connections with veterans. There were visits to Iraq and Afghanistan, yes, plus visits to Walter

Reed hospital. In Afghanistan and Iraq, he was there to talk to coalition partners and military leaders about security issues and draw down. Maybe he sat down to a meal with the troops.

But where’s the real veteran experience? Where’s the commitment to our country with a job that can take you into harm’s way? Or an assignment where your family can’t go? The bad pay? The person above you who can make or break your career? The bad decisions you remain silent about. The terrible duty stations?

Those are the hard, very real things I’m just not seeing in McDonough’s history.

I wish him well … for all our sakes. But excuse me if I withhold the kudos. At least for now.