isagain, when the secretary standing behind someone on a plane, you'd think that they will not make sure that they will do the job appropriately? meetingsng about necessarily, but by staying inside the ivory tower -- it down there in you have so many , -- paper files stacked to the ceiling, at a time when the people have computing capabilities on their hit to take a lunar module to the moon. -- their hip to take a lunar module to the moon. everything in the va is still on paper. >> mr. chairman, i want to make one thing clear, this one element that you seemed to indicate before, that you may from the backing away undersecretary. is that what you're saying? >> i recognize that she does not work for me. she works under the direct supervision of the secretary, of the department of veterans affairs. of course, she works for the taxpayers. there are a lot of taxpayers out there who are not confident the chicken do the job she has been asked to do. there are vso's out there that want to give her more time, but there are also service organizations out there who are tired of waiting as well. >>

isagain, the point i made that for those of us whose job is to engage the local population to represent america to local populations, we have to be able to go outside and meet them in their own places, especially in a part of the world where hospitality is a major part of the culture. and where also, the demonstration of personal courage is an important part of the culture. ,o that means that we have to as individuals, those of us who go outside have to be able to be cognizant of the situations that we are going into. we have to be situationally --re -- as eric would say in order to recognize in advance that we may be getting into a difficult situation. we need to be able to respond appropriately. if we are put in a situation of extremities, we we have to also have the ability to be able to protect ourselves in that situation. >> thank you. mr. nordstrom, i know you do not have a chance to answer or elaborate on my colleagues question. what is your opinion because i want to make sure we get the lessons learned from this. balance that could be struck between focusing on improvements to p