YouSaid · the spoken record

Tammy Duckworth

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79
first
2016-12-19
most recent
2016-12-19
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1
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  1. “Yeah, I am willing to work with anyone if I think that what they're trying to do will benefit my state and my country and if Mr. Trump proposes legitimate policies that I think will benefit Illinois and benefit our country, then I'm more than happy to work with him. I'm going to start off, David, by assuming that he loves this country as much as I love this country. If you can start off from that point, I think you can learn to work with anyone.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “In some ways, if it comes to more funds towards readiness and training of military personnel, yes, absolutely, upgrading certain pieces of equipment, yes, absolutely. But if it means unfettered corporatization of military functions or turning over of huge swaths of the defense budget to corporate, you know, to Mr. Trump's corporate friends? No, of course not. Because the other thing I want to work on, David, is manufacturing. I think Illinois should be leading a national manufacturing renaissance. And if we're blowing money on things that we can't afford in the military that are of no use for national security or the training and the readiness of our troops, then we can't spend that money on STEM education, on technical programs and free community college and all of the things that will help that renaissance.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “David, in addition to the work I've been doing on federal procurement reform, well, on the military and on VA, I'd like to work on federal procurement reform, which is something I've been doing in the House. I sort of made it a priority in DOD to go after the waste and fraud that happens in DOD, but it happens all across government. I introduced a bill that is going to save taxpayers $4.3 billion over five years based on how the military purchases camouflage uniform. And I think about what Illinois could do with 150 of the $4.3 billion. And that was just wasted money.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Even if I disagree with their philosophy, I think they can do the job. And then that's the advice and consent role of the Senate.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Whether or not they're qualified. I look forward to being there to determine whether or not they're qualified. If they're qualified, I'm not going to rule someone out just because they were nominated by Donald Trump. If they're qualified to do the job, they're qualified to do the job.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Now I guess he was not as good at dining companion, I guess, or something. I really feel like that he makes. That mister Trump makes snap judgments, and I don't think he knows who he's thinking of leaning towards until he does it. I don't know. I'm not party to those conversations. That's sort of the sense I get.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “I always get the sense that it's whoever he gets along with when he has dinner with that person that night. I hate to say it. It seems.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Absolutely, but I think that Congress is afraid to have that discussion because they hate to be on the record and it's far easier to just let it slip on by. But it's a disservice to the troops. It's a disservice to the men and women who put their lives on the line because they need to know what their left lane, their right lane is, what they're expected to do, what the parameters are, what the end state is, all of those things, and we are putting troops back overseas over and over and over again to harm's way without clearly defining for them what we expect them to do. So not only is Congress not doing its job, we're letting down our military.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “I don't have not because I think that we need to have a hearing on whether or not we should do it. And it should be public hearings that the American people know what the dangers are and what's at stake. That's been part of the problem with how we've gone to war because I don't think American people see the full cost of what we're trying to do or even know what the goal is.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “So we shouldn't be starting on that slippery slope towards it. And I do think that folks whose civilians oftentimes are enamored with the Hollywood version of what a four-star general is. They don't know everything. They're great at the one thing that they do. And I have great respect for four-star generals, but let's be realistic about... Whether or not that person is qualified for the job to which you are nominating them, and Congress needs to do its job and have full oversight and half the hearings and half those questions. And as far as General Mattis is concerned, there should be a hearing, a full hearing on whether or not he should get this waiver.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “We're in the very same project that you are a decision maker on. That's wrong. I think that separation is there. It's why I sent a letter to leadership. It's why I've just voted against the continuing resolution. I've never voted against a continuing resolution for our nation's budget to keep it going until this time. And I voted against it because the Republican leadership tried to slip in and did successfully a waiver for General Mattis to allow him to serve as Secretary of Defense less than seven years from when he left the military. It's a real danger. We're a great nation. We're the greatest nation on the face of the earth and the greatest democracy because we're not a military junta.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “I think that's a real problem, David. One of the things I've been doing in Congress, I've actually helped introduce legislation that would close the revolving door between generals who leave the Pentagon one day and then goes to work for a defense contractor, oftentimes coming back to the Pentagon in a civilian suit.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “And then they'll start checking for everything else. So it's important that veterans come through VA, get the proper diagnosis, get the care for those things that VA is an expert in. Polytrama, amputee, amputation, all of those types of things. And then for those things that treatments are commonly available, diabetes, prostate cancer, go ahead and get those taken care of outside. I get both at my VA. So I get my healthcare at VA. But when I got pregnant with my baby, VA doesn't have obstructics program. So they referred me to Northwestern and they paid for that.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “If you go to the VA, the doctor will immediately look at all of the other potential illnesses and you'll get diagnosed with a diabetes. And then once you're diagnosed with diabetes, if you want to get that diabetes cared for near your home where you don't have to travel so far, where you don't have to wait so long, then yes, I support having VA pay for that. But I want you to come through the VA first. Outside of the VA, many of your other illnesses will be missed. A man in his forties, early 50s will come into VA and say, I'm tired. I have these achiness. I have some weird neurological problems. It's not Parkinson. I'm not sure what's going on. He'll get our battery of Tess at a civilian doctor. And they might, you know, diagnose him with chronic fatigue syndrome. But at the VA, the first thing they're going to say is those are symptoms of gulf war illness. Are you a gulf war veteran?”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “I think there needs to be a hybrid. I do not support privatization of VA. And that's what generally Republicans have wanted to do. They want to turn the VA into a voucher system. And every veteran would just get a healthcare card and you go to wherever you wanted to go to get the care. The problem with that is we're going to miss service connected illnesses. I'll give you an example, David. If a man in his say 65-year-old man, 66-year-old man goes into his local doctor and he gets diagnosed with diabetes or prostate cancer, he'll get treated for that and very well cared for. But if that same man goes into a VA hospital and he gets treated for that, the first thing that doctor is going to say is, are you a Vietnam veteran? Let's treat you for all of the other conditions related to agent orange exposure. Because you see prostate cancer is much more prevalent among men who have agent orange exposure, diabetes, ischemic heart disease, leukemia B, all of these illnesses.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “I was, and I left because I got frustrated that I couldn't make the changes that I wanted to make in order to fix some of the problems. And I realized some of those fixes had to be legislative.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “I understand why they're there, but to say that you must have a master's degree from a certain accredited program means that trained counselors can't do it, means that other mental health professionals can't do it. And at a time when VA simply does not have the capacity to treat every single veteran who needs mental health care, and they need to change that system. So changing the VAs is number of things slashing through the bureaucracy, increasing the commitment to what it's going to cost to take care of all those veterans. And we have to just be willing to do that. And unfortunately, there's inertia in both the bureaucracy itself that resists the change.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “But one of the things is VA can actually allow more mental health professionals to serve in that capacity. VA actually has an arcane system in its bureaucracy because it is one of the largest bureaucracies in the United States government, over 300,000 employees with who they're allowed to treat veterans.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “But even then you still have unacceptably long waits because there's just not enough physicians to take care of the population of veterans. There are all these”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “Diabetes. So the VA is actually experiencing multiple booms. It's got all these young veterans coming in from the two wars. It's got Gulf War veterans with this vague undefined illness Gulf War syndrome that's only getting progressively worse. It's got Vietnam veterans coming back. It's still dealing with geriatric care for Korean veterans because they're living longer than any veterans have ever lived before. And so the VA is just under this massive load that Americans don't realize. What has to happen? We have to decide. Are we going to fund it all? And that is an enormous price tag. But if that is what we're going to do, then we need to just go ahead and do it and stop creating gates to make veterans meet. We set up all of these barriers that veterans have to navigate in order to get in for care. Once you're in the system, it's a good system and you can get the care that you need.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Disabled like me, then everything gets cared for. But if you're not, then you only get that bum elbow that you hurt getting cared for and nothing else, unless you are below, you know, 30,000. I don't know what that threshold is right now for this year, but it's fairly low. It's a means tested system. And people don't realize that the veterans that are going to VA for care, for the large part, are not Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. You see, because Vietnam veterans are now reaching their mid-60s and 70s and they're reaching a stage of life when so many illnesses that come from Agent Orange exposure really take hold. Parkinson's ischemic heart disease, leukemia, prostate cancer.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “Well, it's more than just the two warrants, David. Let me start off by saying that the VA is. Largest hospital healthcare network in the nation. It's a thousand facilities that you count all the outpatient clinics. And it does a really good job most of the time. But even just one time that a patient is wounded or is injured or dies or doesn't get the care that he or she needs in a VA hospital, it's not acceptable. But for the most part, it does a really good job. I go to Heinz VA as my primary. That's where I go to get my health care. I know firsthand how good the quality of care is. But what Americans don't realize is we actually have means testing for the VA. Americans think that any veteran can go to the VA for health care. That's not the case. You actually have to make less than a certain amount of money and then you're only treated for the illness or injury you have that is connected to your military service unless you are 100%”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “You want us to do is this truly worth it? Is this truly in America's national interest? Are we truly defending the Constitution from all enemies and domestic? Are we truly defending America in doing this? Because if it is the case, then yeah. I'm awford. I'm not a dove, David. I'm not a hawk, but I'm not a dove either. But this is what it's going to cost. Is what it's going to cost, not just a trillion dollars. This is what it's going to cost in terms of the greatest treasure we have, our men and women in uniform. And if that is the case, then That I'm going to be with you, and I'll be with you 100% of the way. And by the way, my family bleeds first.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “I think that civilians are enamored with the idea of America's strength being a military one and that they're oftentimes willing to spend this currency, this treasure. Our greatest national treasure isn't dollars and tanks and helicopters, but it's the lives of the men and women who wear the uniform. And I think that Too often, and I've said this before, too often people are quick to sound at drums of war, but they're not the ones who march off to war. And I feel that in the position that I'm in now, I have a responsibility to say, is this truly what you...”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “I think that there was a personal vendetta going on with the Bush family against Saddam Hussein. I think there was a monetary Component of it with Mr. Cheney. I also think that there was a lot of chess thumping bravado hawks to be hawks but never serving art themselves aspect of it. Spending the lives of young men and women who swore to defend this nation for their own as if it was a currency for themselves and that's not what it's for.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “Because I felt that he and Dick Cheney and the president started this war for themselves, and it wasn't anything about who we were. I mean, I always felt that way, but as a soldier, you keep your personal opinions to yourself. But I think that night I just had enough. And I wasn't going to tell him that. I just said, if it's not an order, then I'd rather not see him. Thank you.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “I refused to see him. I was, you know, I tried to be a good soldier the whole time I was there. And I think that day I had just gone, it was just, I was hurting a lot. I was tired. It was late at night. A colonel came running down the hallway from the public affairs office and he stuck his head in the door and goes, oh my God, you're so lucky. You're in your room. Secretary Rumsfield is coming. Secretary Rumsfield's coming. You're next. He's going to be in your room next. And I just looked at him and I said, Do I have to see him? And I think I stopped him in dead in his tracks and he said, what do you mean? Secretary of Defense? I said, yeah. It's an order, then of course I'll see him. It goes, No, it's not an order, soldier. You don't have to see him. I said, Great, then I don't want that mandiclin to cross the threshold of my door.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “So we started calling ourselves the amputee petting zoo because what was happening was, remember this is the height of the war. Fallujah was happening. Walter was flooded to the gills with casualties and politicians were coming through all the time to look at, you know, to try to allow them to look at you to take pictures with you. There were a lot of folks from the Bush administration who were there just for the photo op with you. And you never heard from them again. You knew who was there for you and who was there for them. And the ones who were there for you came back multiple times on a regular basis quietly. And there were the photo ops guys. And we just started calling ourselves the amputee petting zoo as we felt like we were on display.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “I wanted to kill the motherfucker who shot me down I wanted to go hunt him down and go after him. And it made me mad that I didn't have a chance to shoot back. I didn't have control. I don't have any guns on my aircraft that the pilot can control, but my door gunners. And, you know, if I grabbed my 9mm out, I would have shot it. Thrown things at the guy. I wanted to go back and get him. And then it was just trying to get back to my unit, trying to recover and get back to my unit.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “Right. So it started on November twelfth. I woke up sometime around November twenty third. They kept me under for about eleven, twelve days. That first week was just pain. It was just pain and anger moving.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “I don't know. It was every other day for a long time. They call them surgeries. Mostly they were debridement of wounds, but they put you under general anesthesia and you wake up groggy and in pain.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “They did Dan in his civilian life is a police officer in EMT and he'd seen many dead bodies before and he knew I was gone. But he wasn't going to leave me. So he got my crew chief Sergeant Fierce into the second aircraft and then they came back, me and one other soldier to help carry me out to the second aircraft.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “Right. Yeah, I had no feet. And I did not know that Dan was actually on the control. Dan Milbert was on the controls and he was bringing the aircraft in for landing. And only control that I possibly had that was still working was the collective, which is the power control. And what I also didn't know is that I was blacking out and coming to, blacking out, coming to. And every time I woke up, I would try to fly and then I would black out, dance it every time. He looked over and I was passed out. And so the last memory I have is the little aircraft landing I saw Dan do an emergency engine shut down, realized he hadn't quite gotten it shut down, tried to raise my left hand to finish the emergency engine shutdown because you don't want a fire to start. And then I don't remember anything else after that. I've been told that I woke up in the emergency room and people have come up to me and talked about conversations they had with me, but I don't remember that personally.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “I did not. I did not. The cockpit was filled with smoke, black smoke, and I talked to my crew and no one answered. And I kept trying to, I got on the controls. I said, uh-oh, no one else is, you know, Dan's hurt. He's not answering. I better, I need to fly this aircraft. You got to land it. And I got on the controls. What I didn't realize was that my legs were no longer there. I got frustrated because the aircraft wasn't responding. And I also...”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “Made it to the hospital, my right leg did not, my right leg most of. The leg was a price, and I think from the knee down was laying on the floor of the cockpit.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “I said, I said, fuck man, I think we've been hit. And he said, you know, he responded and I was leaning forward to try to put a target store into GPS. It's funny how your training takes over and it's so automated. Our GPS wasn't working that day, but the training is so ingrained in you that the first thing I did was reach forward to try to program the GPS for the exact points or the data points we could report up to the talk where we taken some arms, right? And right then, boom, the fireball happened in my lap with the RPG going off. And it took off most of the back of my right arm because that was sticking out from the, you know, I had that forward and it blew off my right leg. It basically vaporized it. And my left leg was kicked up into the instrument panel. And the force of that just sheared it almost off. It was hanging with some on a little bit.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “I was co pilot, so the pilot, I've been flying the entire day, and another coincidence that really worked out well for us was that not five, ten minutes before this, the pilot in command, chief foreign officer, Dan Milberg, the real hero, took control of the aircraft. So he was actually on the controls. He caught me a stick pig. It's a nickname for someone who just likes to fly and won't let the other pilot touch the controls. He can stop being a stick pig. It's my turn to fly. I said, all right, fine. So he was flying. I just handed the controls over to him, which worked out well because when the explosion happened to me, it blew me backwards and I went forward into the controls and we would have nosedived right into the ground had I been on the controls because he was on, he was able to pull the aircraft back up.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “Now, I just wanted to go home. I was like, guys, we can't leave these guys out there. So we diverted and went on a part of a mission that we were never assigned and went to pick them up. And by the time we got there, the passengers weren't there. We picked up different passenger and headed home in 10.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “Completely normal day it was a great day. It was the beginning of thaw over there, so it's a little chilly in the morning. And some of the decisions we made made all the difference in the world. It was a little chilly, but we knew it was going to get warm, so we still left the doors off the aircraft when it got a little warmer. We're going to have to put the doors on. But that day was like, you know what, we'll just suck it up. It'll be worth it in the afternoon. And in fact, it helped because it allowed the charge, the explosive charge to dissipate instead of being trapped in the aircraft had the doors been closed. More people would have been wounded. Having the doors off actually dissipated the charge a little bit. We'd stop in the green zone for lunch. We were headed back to home base and then we got the call that some passengers in Taji needed a ride and they called me and they knew I was out flying and I was the operations officer. So they said, you know, give me a permission to do this. And I talked to my crew.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “He earned that I learned, you know, since me in Congress because he's testified before he retired multiple times in front of the Armed Services Committee that I've on, I also learned to appreciate his scholarly aspect. He's quite the scholar as well. And I could see that in his testimony, and I appreciated it. I disagree with him on a lot of things when it comes to he doesn't think women should serve in combat. And I think he's not sure how he... Whether he's taken a stand against a don't ask, don't tell, and all of that. But you want someone to run a war and destroy the enemy, he's the guy.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “It was during the Second Battle for Fallujah, and in fact Madison was the commander then for the Marines, I believe, at that same time period And I”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “Iraq. And I flew into Abu Ghariat myself a couple of times. We didn't take any, none that we noticed, but there was definitely a heightened mission whenever we did that.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  43. “It didn't hit. It did not hit us. We flew past and boom there. It's like, oh shit, that was an RPG hit. That was an RPG going off. And we'd flown, you know, in lots of times when there were the black puffs that happened into the cloud, which is just basically the smarms fire that happened from here and there. But for the most part, our missions were pretty routine and quiet. Our unit had taken hits flying into Abu Ghraib. We often got reports of guys taking small arms fire at them, mainly because of the way it's situated in order to come in, you got to come low and slow in your sitting ducks for the small arm fryer.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  44. “I personally once before, and I think it was an RPG as well. We had one go off not too far from us, but that was my personal first time when we actually were hit. I was going up north towards Urbil towards Kirkuk and Urbil when we took the last one. And that was fairly early on. I was probably in the first four months that I was there. This was within my last, I mean, we were getting ready to come home when I was hit November. We were due to come home in the spring, so we weren't, you know, last three or four months.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  45. “Because I love flying. I love being part of it. It's the best part being part of a crew, you're part of this cohesive unit. You want to be with your guys and you're, you don't want anyone to face danger and you not face the same danger. So you have to take the same risk.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  46. “So, I was the assistant operations officer. We needed every pilot who could fly to be flying. At first, I started up flying once a week on missions, and then I begged and pleaded. And my boss said, okay, you can fly twice a week, and sometimes three times a week. And so I felt...”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  47. “The discipline and the pure meritocracy of the organization from the first day that I showed up, it didn't matter if I was male or female. It didn't matter that I was Asian, that I grew up overseas. None of that mattered. It just mattered if I could do the job and if I was willing to do the job and that if I was willing to stand up for my buddies next to me and when you were miserable you were miserable together and when things went well you were part of a unit and this overwhelming patriotism of serving my nation that I am putting on her uniform and I'm swearing to defend her with my life.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  48. “Even then, even then I never said it out loud in my unit. I had those private conversations at Rotary when I talked to my colleagues there. I felt that we invaded a sovereign nation needlessly, and we should have been pursuing the war in Afghanistan, destroying our enemies who dared to attack us there. I felt that Iraq was a personal vendetta of the Bush family. Know my country had elected a president, the Supreme Court had said he was our president. He said this is what he wanted us to do as commander-in-chief of the United States Congress voted on it and said, this is what it wanted us to do. And I believe so purely in the primacy of the civilian over the military that I said, okay, I'm going.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  49. “Those are my guys. I train them for three years as their commander. I knew from the minute 911 happened that something was going to happen. I never dreamt that it was Iraq. I thought it was B Afghanistan. And I didn't want to be the one officer standing at the airport saying goodbye to my guys. I didn't believe in the war in Iraq. I didn't think it was the right thing.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  50. “Go to Iraq. Yeah, we had gotten mobilized. We got mobilized in May of 2003. And while I was in command, and then we stood back down over the summer, and then I left command at the end of October and in November we got the note that the unit was going. And I had been moved out of the unit and I called my boss and I said, sir, you have to take me. There's no way that you can't take me. I'll do anything. Please take me. I'm not in the unit anymore, but you've got to take me.”

    2016-12-19 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 106 - Tammy Duckworth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source