The following article by Brett Samuels was posted on the Hill website January 28, 2018:
Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) on Sunday doubled down on her criticism of President Trump’s rhetoric about the military, saying his history of avoiding military service prevents him from criticizing those who have served.
“I don’t think that he has the right to question other people’s support for our military, especially those of us who have served,” Duckworth said on CBS’s “Face The Nation.”
Duckworth earlier this month ripped Trump for saying Democrats were holding the military hostage by demanding immigration reform in exchange for funding the government.
“I spent my entire adult life looking out for the well-being, the training, the equipping of the troops for whom I was responsible. Sadly, this is something that the current occupant of the Oval Office does not seem to care to do — and I will not be lectured about what our military needs by a five-deferment draft dodger,” Duckworth said in a Senate floor speech.
Trump received five deferments from the draft during the Vietnam War, including one due to heel spurs, or bone protrusions caused by a calcium buildup.
Duckworth, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, lost both of her legs when a rocket-propelled grenade hit the helicopter she was piloting over Iraq in 2004.
On Sunday, Duckworth doubled down on her criticism of Trump for avoiding military service.
“I can still feel the hangnail in my right foot, and it’s missing,” Duckworth said. “And, you know, we have a guy that says he had a bone spur that kept him out of Vietnam and he can’t remember where it was.”
Duckworth announced last week that she is pregnant with her second child, making her the first senator to give birth while in office.