Eric Shinseki — American Soldier born on November 28, 1942,

Eric Ken Shinseki is a retired United States Army general who served as the seventh United States Secretary of Veterans Affairs. His final U.S. Army post was as the 34th Chief of Staff of the Army. Shinseki is a veteran of two tours of combat in the Vietnam War, in which he was awarded three Bronze Stars for valor and two Purple Hearts. He was both the first Asian-American four-star general and then the Secretary of Veterans Affairs... (wikipedia)

More importantly, if you are in a position to hire, hire a veteran. They will be the best employees you have.
I do engage veterans. I meet with the veterans' service organizations monthly. It's a direct, no-holds-barred discussion. I travel to their conventions, where I speak to the veterans membership. I do travel. I've been to all 50 states. When I do, I engage veterans locally. So I get direct feedback from those veterans.
I have spent a lifetime watching kids make mistakes because they were not trained or well led or properly motivated to do well. I never faulted the kids; rather, I saw opportunity to train, to motivate, to improve leadership - not to punish the individual.
It's important in any organization that if visions have any reality at all, it's because the organization believes that the vision is right and that they share in it. Otherwise, it becomes the good idea of one person, and that even more importantly contributes to the sense that it will not survive the departure of that individual.
The magnificent army that fought in Desert Storm is a great army, and it still is a magnificent army today. But it was one we designed for the Cold War, and the Cold War has been over for ten years now.