http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/stor ... 09,00.html
Profile of Bush's Choice for VA Secretary
Thursday December 9, 2004 9:31 PM
AP Photo ROM110
By LIZ SIDOTI
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Jim Nicholson, who says he grew up ``dirt poor'' on a tenant farm in Iowa, went on to serve as a cadet at West Point, an Army Ranger in Vietnam and chairman of the Republican National Committee. For the past three years, he has been U.S. ambassador to the Vatican.
On Thursday, President Bush nominated Nicholson to be secretary of the Veterans Affairs Department.
``The boy from Struble, Iowa may serve in the president's Cabinet,'' Nicholson said. ``How could this happen?''
Nicholson credited his rise to the opportunities afforded to him through the Army.
``These experiences have defined my life, shaped my abilities and my desire to serve,'' he said.
If confirmed by the Senate, the 66-year-old Nicholson would succeed Anthony Principi, who is resigning. One of Nicholson's brothers, John W. Nicholson, currently is the agency's undersecretary for Memorial Affairs, National Cemetery Administration.
Nicholson, one of seven children from an Irish Catholic family, grew up in poverty in Iowa. He and his siblings sometimes went hungry as they lived in run-down tenant farmhouses that sometimes lacked electricity or plumbing. Nicholson has described his father as an alcoholic unable to keep a job and his mother as a hard worker who impressed upon her children that a good education and lots of praying would lead to a better life.
Strong performances in the classroom and in athletics won him a spot at the U.S. Military Academy. Upon graduation, he went to Vietnam as an Army Ranger, where he won the Bronze Star.
After eight years, Nicholson left active duty to return to school. He got his master's degree from Columbia University in New York and then his law degree from the University of Denver. He became a real estate lawyer in Colorado and then a residential developer.
For 22 years, he remained a member of the Army Reserve.
Nicholson also got involved in the Republican Party and quickly ascended the ranks of the state party before joining the national committee in 1986.
He was elected chairman of the Republican National Committee in 1997, a year after President Clinton defeated GOP challenger Bob Dole to win re-election.
The new national chairman aimed to rebuild the party and raise enough money during the next four years to be able to help the 2000 Republican nominee win the White House. Nicholson succeed and was credited with transforming a party organization that had all but crumbled during the Clinton years.
Scott Reed, a Republican who ran Dole's campaign in 1996, described Nicholson as ``very calm and stable. He's not a showboat.''
Reed said Nicholson obviously made an impression on Bush when he was the GOP chairman. When the Texas governor won the Republican presidential nomination in 2000, Reed said, ``the Bush team kept Nicholson in place and he became an integral part of the team.''
In 2001, the president named Nicholson the U.S. ambassador to the Vatican.
Just two years earlier, Nicholson had been awarded one of the Roman Catholic faith's highest honors: He was named a Knight in the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.
Ranger named as nominee for VA Sec...
Moderator: Site Admin
Ranger named as nominee for VA Sec...
"Interdum feror cupidine partium magnarum Europae vincendarum"
(Sometimes I get this urge to conquer large parts of Europe)
Mentor to those who would seek to be CAS God's
(Sometimes I get this urge to conquer large parts of Europe)
Mentor to those who would seek to be CAS God's
