By Charles K. Djou – I am excited to see the President nominate former Procter and Gamble CEO, Robert McDonald, a veteran with extensive private sector experience, as the next VA Secretary.
Merely installing a new face at the VA alone, however, will not fix the deep problems of corruption and inefficiency that plague this agency in Hawaii and across the country.
The new VA Secretary needs to quickly understand the serious depth of the problems facing the VA in Hawaii. He also should embrace structural reforms to the VA, like allowing vets to access private healthcare with their VA benefits, that will prevent the long wait times that have characterized the current VA crises.
Congressman Djou served with the U.S. Army’s 3rd Combat Brigade Team, 10th Mountain Infantry Division for Operation Enduring Freedom in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where he was awarded the Combat Action Badge. He is currently a major in the U.S. Army Reserve and a VA beneficiary. In his previous term in Congress, Congressman Djou was a member of the House Armed Services Committee.
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