Shinseki's Message: "Treat our veterans with respect and dignity"

A much needed fresh start for the Department of Veterans Affairs:

Retired Army Gen. Eric K. Shinseki pledged yesterday to transform the Department of Veterans Affairs into a proactive, "21st-century organization" to meet the needs of a growing population of wounded veterans.

Shinseki, the former Army chief of staff who put his career on the line in 2003 by challenging then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's estimate of troop numbers required in Iraq, received bipartisan praise as a man of candor and integrity in a Senate confirmation hearing on Shinseki's nomination as VA secretary in the incoming Obama administration.

Let's flashback to that challenge and the response (h/t to Think Progress):

And now, six years since Shinseki's advice was ignored, with his every dire prediction realized, he's accepted the challenge "to make the Department of Veterans Affairs a 21st-century organization," saying:

"Asking [veterans] to take a number and wait or put up with records that are lost or take six months to adjudicate is not part of the culture I expect," Shinseki said.

"My message would be this: Treat our veterans with respect and dignity," the nominee said. "They're not here begging for a handout."

Damn straight.