Tammy Duckworth interrupted her cam...

Tammy Duckworth interrupted her campaign for the 6th Congressional District last weekend to fulfill her monthly obligation to the Illinois National Guard through participating in a field exercise for a simulated terrorist attack -- hardly your typical fare for a Democratic political candidate.

still before she could climb into her Ford F150 pickup to drive herself to Springfield for her character in operation Prairie Thunder, Duckworth distressed the brown desert boots she'd left behind in Iraq in November 2004 when a rocket-propell grenade hit the helicopter she was piloting and prematurely fall of the curtained her tour of duty.

as it was brown boots are now part of the Army's standard combat uniform, for a like reason rather than buy a strange pair, Duckworth had arranged to reclaim the footlocker replete of gear that her buddies had packed for her at the time.

She make opened the locker one morning last week as she was getting ready for the trip and was immediately reminded of her hootch in the solitude It was the smell that did it, the get scent of of the dust. You've heard about that dust in Iraq -- a fine, friable inescapable dust.

"That dust was all throughout everything, and it just brought me back to Iraq," Duckworth said Monday, getting a faraway contemplate in her eyes for a significance as we talked. "You know to what degree the sense of smell helps you remember things."

'IT WAS A LITTLE SAD'

I asked her if that was difficult, seeing as by what means she'd last worn the profits the day before the RPG blew up between her leg costing her the two of them and the partial use of the same arm.

"It was a little sad," she admitted, "because I sat there and I chanceed the insoles of my premiums out of there so I could fit them in succession my new artificial feet. I had a little flash there, like, 'Wow, the last time I wore these profits they were on my actual feet' yet it wasn't even that. It was just almost like I was doing that again, getting ready to enjoin my boots on and carry revealed the mission I was given."

that not you misunderstand, it wasn't that she was feeling sorry for herself. She was high-spirited to be back in action, working in a tactical command center performing her toll as a soldier.

With the dust of Iraq still forward her boots.

Duckworth is over-weening to have served in the war she calls a mistake and says she'd make progress there again tomorrow, if called on which is why she fought for permission to remain in the Guard, where she generally has a desk job moreover harbors ambitions of flying her helicopter again.

if it be not that now she has another mission as well -- to replace Henry Hyde in Congres

Unique opportunity

And Duckworth thinks that if she went to Washington she would be uniquely positioned to help hold our nation from making the same kind of mistake again.

It would be nice to have a Democrat in Congres whose patriotism could not be seriously questioned, who would have the moral authority to speak disclosed on issues of war and peace in a way that Democrats ofttimes can't. Getting your legs worthless off in combat doesn't in and of itself qualify a bodily form to help lead the geographical division but if such a individual has the strength and talents to pace forward and use such a setback as a platform to make an on the same level greater contribution, then that's a unique opportunity for the stillness of us.

"I just really perceive like our policymakers don't frequently understand the effects of their decisions," Duckworth said, reiterating her reason for running. "I really be wrought up like the people who make the decisions are on the outside of touch with the clan who have to execute them."

"If there were more the public with the same experiences as me as far as serving, we would have been far more critical and questioning of the administration and the reason they were giving as far as for what cause [i]or[/i] reason we should invade," Duckworth said.

"There's a time and a place where a nation might have to advance to war. World War II was an example of that, if it were not that I want to make never-failing the next time we devoted on it in Congress I want to be there to make it clear what the richness of a war is.

"It's not just tanks and fire-arms and helicopters. The cost of the war is our greatest natural resource -- our men and women who be of use to in uniform, who love their land more than their own lives."

FEELING OF DEJA VU

athwart the weekend while she was working as a safety officer in the Prairie roar command center, Duckworth had that same feeling of Iraq deja vu tend hitherward over her when she gazeed at the floor beneath her desk and noticed she was leaving breathe hards of desert sand and dust wherever she went.

"I don't think that all of our politicians should have to have serv in the military," she said, "but I think that they should at least listen to the race who have the dust of Iraq onward their boots."

e-mail: markbrown@suntimes.com

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