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Fast, Friendly Hearing for Duckworth
Produced by Sam Hudzik on Wednesday, April 01, 2009
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The former head of Illinois' Department of Veterans Affairs breezed through a hearing Wednesday in the U.S. Senate. Tammy Duckworth is nominated to serve as an assistant secretary for the federal V.A.
Senators praised Duckworth for her work in Illinois and her courage in Iraq. She lost both her legs in combat when her helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade.
If approved by the vets committee and full Senate - which is all but a done deal - Duckworth would head up the department's public affairs programs. She wants to use the internet and social networking tools - like blogs and Facebook - to communicate with vets.
DUCKWORTH: We learned this in the Vietnam generation. We had a whole generation of vets that came in, were not treated with respect, perhaps did not get the message correctly, and they turned around and they walked away from the V.A. for 30 years. And for 30 years they suffered. And that's simply not acceptable.
The Senate hearing lasted less than an hour, and included no direct mention of Duckworth's connection - however fleeting - to former Governor Rod Blagojevich, who put her in charge of Illinois' vets program.
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