Eric Ken Shinseki, of Japanese ancestry, was born in Lihue, Kauai, Hawaii, then the Territory of Hawaii. He grew up with his grandparents in the Japanese section of a plantation community. As a youth, he was active in the Boy Scouts, served as class president at Kauai High School (graduating in 1960), and learned that three of his uncles had served in the highly decorated 442nd Infantry Regiment during World War II. Shinseki graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1965 with a bachelor's degree, launching a 38-year Army career that included two combat tours in Vietnam, where he was awarded three Bronze Star Medals with 'V' device for valor and two Purple Hearts for wounds sustained. He rose to become the first Asian-American four-star general and the 34th Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army (1999-2003), during which he testified on Iraq troop needs in 2003. He later earned an M.A. in English literature from Duke University. Appointed by President Barack Obama as the first Asian-American Secretary of Veterans Affairs (2009-2014), Shinseki resigned amid a major scandal over long patient wait times and falsified scheduling records at VA facilities, though no personal misconduct was alleged against him. The episode drew widespread criticism and calls for accountability.