WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 — Dr. James B. Peake, a retired Army lieutenant general who is a thoracic surgeon, was selected by President Bush today to head the Department of Veterans Affairs.

“He will be the first physician and the first general to serve as secretary,” Mr. Bush said at the White House with Dr. Peake beside him. Dr. Peake, a member of the West Point class of 1966 who served in Vietnam as an infantry officer, was awarded a Silver Star, Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts.

“As a medical officer and combat vet who was wounded in action, Dr. Peake understands the view from both sides of the hospital bed, the doctor’s and the patient’s,” the president said, saying he was confident that, once confirmed by the Senate, Dr. Peake “will insist on the highest level of care for every American veteran.”

Dr. Peake spend 40 years in Army medicine. “Fundamentally, I’m a soldier,” he said. “I’ve been taking care of soldiers essentially all of my adult life.” He said it was “a high honor indeed” to be asked to do so now.

Dr. Peake entered Cornell University Medical School after his Vietnam service and was awarded a medical doctorate in 1972. He was the Army’s surgeon general for four years and retired from the military in 2004. He is now the chief medical director and chief operating officer at QTC Management, which provides disability-examination testing and other medical services.

If confirmed, Dr. Peake would succeed Jim Nicholson, another Vietnam veteran, who resigned effective Oct. 1. The department’s deputy secretary, Gordon H. Mansfield, has been serving as acting secretary. The Department of Veterans Affairs is an enormous bureaucracy of nearly a quarter-million people. It is in charge of hundreds of medical centers, clinics, nursing homes, benefits offices and national cemeteries.

The agency has had its troubles in recent months, including criticism over the care of wounded veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2006, the computer data on millions of veterans was potentially compromised by the theft of a laptop computer from the home of a department employee. The department spent millions of dollars trying to repair the damage from the breach.

Democrats have accused the president of being too slow to name a permanent replacement for Mr. Nicholson.

“With the military and V.A. increasingly stretched thin by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is long past time that the President put in place a new Secretary of Veterans Affairs,” Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, said today. “I look forward to the Veterans Affairs Committee carefully reviewing General Peake’s nomination.”