i also have to say that as a leader i know secretary shenseki on a personal level and you can't findore capable and competent person to lead the agency. they're trying to work with as many people as they can to get the backlog fixed. at the regional office, again these people have been there for a while. they're government service employees, and they know there is nothing that you can do to either remove them or replace them, so they just continue on doing the things that they like to do, and there's nothing that really--there is nothing that has been done to get them out of the way. >> john: i'm baffled why this backlog continues to exist and grow. if it's not a staffing problem and we know that the pentagon and the v.a. is not affected by the sequester then it has to be a funding issue. if the blame doesn't fall on the head of benefits, allison hickey or fall on the president or does it fall on a previous administration that sent all these troops to war. who do we place the blame and how do we start to fix it? >> well, you have to understand that v.a. has and was underfunded under