of a bipartisan nature which is a freak of nature in washington right now. because so many things are different about the va, there s been debate about what is the right kind of experience for a person to have in order to run an agency that big, that important, that complicated, that different. you had a business background, you re a veteran, you d run a large organization before. what did running the va tell you about the best way to get prepared to do something that hard? yeah, i frankly think president obama had it right. you know, he chose me, historically, republican, to be part of his democratic administration but he knew i d run a fortune 25 company around the world, lived around the world, worked in many different cultures and he knew i was a veteran. a west point graduate. and an infantry officer, airborne ranger. so i think he had it right. i think that s what you need. you know, if the va were a fortune 100 company, it would be fortune 9, would be the ninth largest company