ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Secretary of Veterans Affairs Jim Nicholson was awarded an honorary doctor of laws degree on May 15 by Ave Maria School of Law here.
Secretary Nicholson, in his commencement address to the graduating students, thanked the school “for bestowing this singular honor on a once-poor kid from Struble, Iowa.”
Nicholson is a 1961 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. He earned a master’s degree from Columbia University in New York, and a law degree from the University of Denver. He was sworn into the top job at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) on Feb. 1, 2005.
“Our nation is blessed with young men and women, who cannot cast a blind eye toward injustice, and who are prepared to lay down their lives on the altar of freedom so that others may live in peace and tranquility,” Secretary Nicholson said.
Before taking up his VA duties, he was U.S. ambassador to the Holy See at the Vatican. He recalled his times with the late Pope John Paul II and stressed to the graduates the importance of being selfless and learning to “slow your pace and look out for others who are not so fortunate.”
Secretary Nicholson directs the federal government’s second largest department with a budget of nearly $70 billion, responsible for a nationwide system of health care services, benefits programs and national cemeteries for America‘s 25 million veterans.
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