Trump’s VA Chief Confronts Challenges Facing America’s Veterans

Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie brings a personal and family history of military service to his high-profile job—characteristics that have helped him lead a government agency responsible for providing care for approximately 9.5 million of America’s veterans. Wilkie is the son of an Army artillery commander who grew up at Fort Bragg. Today, he is a colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserve and has more than 20 years of public service in the various national security and defense roles in government. The Daily Signal spoke to him about the issues confronting America’s veterans and his leadership of the Department of Veterans Affairs. A lightly edited transcript is below along with the full audio podcast.

Rob Bluey: Tell us about the mission of Veterans Affairs and what your priorities are as Secretary for the department.

Robert Wilkie: The mission is very simple, but it’s also sublime. I’m sitting underneath the quote from the father of what was first the Veterans Bureau and now Veterans Affairs. That’s Mr. Abraham Lincoln.

In his second inaugural, he said that the mission of government was to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and orphan. One of the last acts of his life before he went to the theater was to sign the charters for three soldiers’ homes in Maine, Ohio, and Wisconsin. And our mission as a result of Mr. Lincoln’s mandate is to do just that.

We take care of about nine and a half million of America’s veterans. We provide educational benefits and home loans. And we are the other end of the national security continuum. We take care of those who have already borne the battle, and I have always argued that this is probably the noblest mission in government.

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