Thank you, Chairman Filner, Ranking member Buyer, and members of the Committee.  I am very pleased to be here, and to be back on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee.  We accomplished a great deal last Congress, thanks in no small part to the leadership of our Chairman, and there is much work that remains to be done.  I am very pleased to be here with the new Secretary of the VA today, and I am honored, because he is a genuine American hero.

We owe those who have served our country honorably in our military a profound debt, and that is what we are here for.  I am confident that with a new administration that has made its commitment to veterans clear not just in the campaign but with the outstanding nomination of not just a genuine American hero but also a proven leader in General Shinseki to be the head of the Department of Veterans Affairs, that we will make real progress on a number of fronts.

I am also confident that we will continue to work in a spirit of bipartisan cooperation in this Committee which has been really impressive and gratifying and which ultimately is what our veterans deserve from us.

I intend to be particularly focused this Congress on ensuring that our returning servicemen and women are guaranteed a seamless transition as they reintegrate back into civilian life.  Such a seamless transition requires unprecedented cooperation between two huge organizations, the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs, so it is a difficult challenge.  We in Congress have a significant role to play, both in providing the executive branch with the tools it needs to make that seamless transition possible, and in providing oversight in order to guarantee that those tools are being used as effectively and as efficiently as possible.  I was very pleased to see that General Shinseki, in his confirmation hearings, fully recognized the importance of seamless transition for our newest veterans, and I look forward to working with the new administration on it.

And I look forward to working with all of you.

With that, I yield back.