Eric Ken "Rick" Shinseki (/ʃɨnˈsɛki/; born November 28, 1942) is a retired United States Army four-star general who is currently serving as the 7th United States Secretary of Veterans Affairs. His final U.S. Army post was as the 34th Chief of Staff of the Army (1999–2003). He is a veteran of combat in Vietnam, where he sustained a foot injury.

Shinseki was born in Lihue, Kauai in the then Territory of Hawaii, to an American family of Japanese ancestry. His grandparents immigrated from Hiroshima to Hawaii in 1901. He grew up in a sugar plantation community on Kaua'i and graduated from Kaua'i High and Intermediate School in 1960. After high school, he attended the United States Military Academy and graduated in 1965 with a Bachelor of Science degree and a commission as a second lieutenant. He earned a Master of Arts degree in English Literature from Duke University. He was also educated at the Armor Officer Advanced Course, the United States Army Command and General Staff College, and the National War College.

Jacob Paul "Jake" Tapper (born March 12, 1969) is an American print and television journalist, currently the senior White House correspondent for ABC News in Washington, D.C. He was named to that position the day after election day 2008, having covered then-senator Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

He last interviewed Obama in July 2009 in Moscow, in an interview where the president expressed confidence that his foreign policy approach was starting to work and said regarding the stimulus package, "there's nothing that we would have done differently." That January, Tapper had broken the story of the tax troubles of then-Health and Human Services secretary nominee and former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle (D-SD), troubles that ultimately derailed Daschle's nomination.

From March through July 2010, Tapper was interim anchor of ABC's This Week, hosting the program until Christiane Amanpour became This Week's anchor.

Tapper was born in New York City and was raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His mother, Anne Tapper, retired as a psychiatric nurse at Philadelphia Veterans Administration Medical Center. His father, Theodore S. "Ted" Tapper, a Dartmouth graduate, was a president of South Philadelphia Pediatrics, a group medical practice, and is an associate clinical professor of pediatrics at Jefferson Medical College, both in Philadelphia.

Jamie McIntyre is a former Senior Pentagon correspondent for CNN. He held this position from 1992 to 2008. Before joining CNN he was host and senior writer for WUSA-TV in Washington D.C.

McIntyre was inside the Pentagon when a plane crashed into it during the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

He received a Bachelor's degree in broadcasting from the University of Florida, and in 2002 he was honored as a distinguished alumnus.

In July 2009, McIntyre joined the editorial team at Military.com where he blogged at "Jamie McIntyre's Line of Departure," Military.com's Media and National Policy Journal.