Iraq war veteran L. Tammy Duckworth, a helicopter pilot who lost her legs to a rocket-propelled grenade attack, formally announced her candidacy Sunday for the congressional seat of retiring Republican Rep. Henry Hyde.
"A little over a year after a rocket-propelled grenade ripped into her helicopter cockpit over Iraq and shattered her legs, Army Major L. Tammy Duckworth is out of the hospital and preparing to take on a new challenge: Congress. The 37-year-old pilot was expected to announce Sunday afternoon that she will enter the race to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Henry Hyde (news, bio, voting record). Even though she's a Democrat, Duckworth believes her "leadership and ability to make tough choices" will resonate with voters in Chicago's affluent western suburbs, represented by the conservative Hyde for 32 years. "As a soldier, when I make a decision it could actually mean that somebody might get shot at or killed," she told The Associated Press on Saturday. "I look around and see that the Bush administration has made some really bad choices when it comes to Iraq."Doesn't it seem that all the Iraq war veterans who are now running for office are running as Democrats? I didn't think any Democrats were serving in Iraq?
