Tammy Duckworth: Hegseth not qualified to be defense secretary [View all]

[Jrose]

'Illinois senator and Army veteran Tammy Duckworth: Hegseth 'not qualified' to be defense secretary'

'Speaking to ABC, Illinois Democratic senator and retired Army National Guard lieutenant colonel Tammy Duckworth criticized Pete Hegseth’s belief that women should not play in a combat role.
Duckworth, who is a combat veteran of the Iraq war where she served as a Army helicopter pilot before losing both legs during an attack in 2004, said:

“Obviously I have my personal opinions but as a US senator, my job will be to determine whether or not he is qualified to be secretary of defense, and frankly, it shows me that he’s not because he doesn’t understand the realities of modern warfare.

We’re not talking about the Revolutionary War, where there’s a line behind which…this is combat and that’s not combat. If you were in the green zone…Baghdad, you were in a combat zone, whether you were a helicopter pilot like myself or a truck driver, which, by the way, is a job that women have been doing since World War One. So it just showed me that he really doesn’t understand modern warfare and is therefore not qualified to be secretary of defense.”

(Reported by Maya Yang - The Guardian)

Tammy Duckworth is one of this country's most courageous, patriotic and outspoken American women. She fights along with those of us who defend democracy against Djt's rising autocracy of fascistic and misogynistic white men.