War heroine leads Democrat charge (Tammy Duckworth) [View All]

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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2415686,00.html

WHEN Tammy Duckworth’s army helicopter was shot down in Iraq, it took her eight days to regain consciousness. She asked in hospital why her feet hurt, not knowing that her legs had been blown off by a rocket-propelled grenade.

Two years on she looks the picture of health from the waist up and has a wide smile and an engaging laugh. One of her legs is only 2½in long; the other ends at the thigh. As she whirls around the campaign trail in her wheelchair, Duckworth has become a symbol of hope for Democrats in next month’s mid-term elections.

Polls show her just a point behind her Republican opponent, a lawyer, in the battle for Congress. The prosperous outlying suburb of Chicago which Duckworth is contesting, has been die-hard Republican for decades and is reputed to have more churches per square mile than any district in America.

In a normal year Duckworth, 38, would be trounced. Tax cuts, gay marriage, abortion: these would be the issues dominating the campaign. But this election, more than anything, is about the war in Iraq, a subject the wounded pilot says she knows “a little something about”.