For many in military, Shinseki remains an American hero - Killeen Daily Herald

WASHINGTON — As the words left President Barack Obama’s lips on Friday that he accepted the resignation of retired Army Gen. Eric K. Shinseki as secretary of veterans affairs, a pained groan emerged from a crowd of troops, veterans and civilians who’d gathered around television sets at the Pentagon.

Even as calls grew in Congress for Shinseki, 71, to step down, and details emerged of an effort to misreport scheduling delays for patient appointments, many in the uniformed military had remained decidedly in Shinseki’s camp, convinced an American hero — maimed in Vietnam and humiliated for publicly questioning Iraq policy during the Bush administration — was being made a scapegoat.

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