Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth here! What questions do you have for me?

I was part of the successful effort to make mandatory and advanced funding for the VA health care budget a reality in 2009. It was a long, hard fight. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) usually provides non-retiree Veteran health care, so that program is already separated from the annual Defense appropriations bill. And while separating retiree health care from Defense spending is technically possible, it may not be a good idea, as allowing retirees and their families to use military treatment facilities benefits both retirees and military physicians. We shouldn’t limit a retiree’s ability to get care from their preferred provider, who might be a DOD doctor. Also, doing so would limit our physicians’ ability to keep their skills sharp should they need to be deployed on short notice.

That said, I share your concerns with attempts—several of which were included in this year’s DOD budget request—to cut costs by unfairly targeting retirees and increasing their healthcare fees. In my opinion, this ongoing battle reflects the one-size-fits-all budget controls we’ve enacted. We shouldn’t have to choose between providing the services we promised and controlling government spending, especially not when there are other places within the Department’s budget (and across the Federal Government) to keep the promises we made to those uniform.

LTC Tammy Duckworth - Having served since 1970 to 2012 on both active duty and in the reserves, I was on the ground floor when the military became an all-volunteer force. Like so much in life, there have been some pros and cons to the move away from having a draft and you have done a good job identifying most of them. But I have come to the opinion that we have gotten almost too good at screening out potential inductees. This is evidenced by some of the JCS statements that only 1% of the population within the 18-32 age range are eligible for service....that means 99% of our population has something eliminating them from consideration for service. During the years of the draft, our potential pool of service men and women was much larger.

The concern is that while current citizens are being preventing from service and same time many good veterans are being prematurely pushed out, the Obama administration is pushing for the enlistments of "undocumented" (aka illegal) immigrants. If military service is the "glue" as you described it, shouldn't the honor of service first go to those who are citizens or at least in this country legally?

http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2014/oct/02/allen-west/obama-ordered-military-enlist-illegal-aliens-allen/

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/25/policy-to-allow-undocumented-immigrants-in-military/16225135/

BHO is IMHO, TREASONOUS and the worst POTUS America has ever had. Sanders and Cliton would destroy what little we have of this country we have left.

I sure with Condi Rice would have ran for president. But, I'll,any "R" over HC or BS.

LTC Tammy Duckworth,

Are you working toward legislation that would remove investigation authority on bullying, sexual harassment, sexual assault, and all the follow-on retaliation out of military Commanders' Lane?
It must be done by professional investigators not AR 15-6 Investigating Officers that are MWR Managers and Pharmacists. These behaviors and actions are cancers in organizations and no one should be allowed to have these untrained investigative non-professionals causing more harm to already suffering Targets. These behaviors by perpetrators defeat Readiness, cause health problems that cost the taxpayers to pay for stress related health care expenses, decreased productivity, increase hours/days missed from duty, and increase attempted and completed suicides.
We need trained professional investigators that know how to treat a Target with Dignity and Respect and are searching for the truth. Also, the Military and the VA do not have Healing Recovery Programs to assist the suffering Targets in not just surviving but actually thriving.

On the subject of encouraging enlistment in an all volunteer force... I'm a 101st Airborne Desert Storm Veteran. I'm proud of my service, but I've always encouraged my two kids to NOT join.

The reason is simple, while I learned valuable life lessons in the Army, my five years time in service really doesn't benefit me much in the subsequent 20 years of civilian life. Most corporations are fickle about "discounts", often they come down to not much more than a marketing ploy. Even the Montgomery G.I. Bill, that I *bought* expired before I was able to use it because I was too busy post service making a living to take the time to go to school.

Texas has the Hazlewood act, that is waiving tuition and fees for my daughter's college education, and I'm grateful for the benefit, but really in the last 20 years it's the only benefit I've had that really has some teeth to it.

Low salary, poor living conditions, risking life and limb... and so often the case, if a service member is injured the VA has a reputation of not being equipped to take care of them... that's not even taking into consideration a prior service member's personal availability to the VA system. I live in the SW corner of the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex, in order to access the VA health system I would need to drive an hour past multiple other hospitals. The VA needs to be expanded dramatically to be a benefit to most service members.

My solution? Waive federal taxes for veterans for life.

I doubt it would make much of an impact on tax revenue overall, we're only 7% of the overall population (and this at the end of a long conflict where we have a military larger than the next 8 countries combined), and I suspect there are very few of us that are above the 25% tax bracket.

It WOULD however provide a huge incentive other than "just patriotism" (which only goes so far in today's "what's in it for me" society) for intelligent young people who have other options to consider a career in the military.