After War Injury, an Iraq Vet Takes on Politics

Her public career began shortly after Durbin invited wounded Illinois vets to attend last year's State of the Union address. Duckworth, promoted to major, soon was calling Durbin's office to get help for military families, which led to congressional testimony on military health care.

In March, Duckworth took her first steps on her first set of artificial legs. It took her two minutes to walk 12 feet. She felt exhausted, and elated.

It was summer when Durbin asked her to consider a fresh career. She realized the target was the Illinois 6th, whose boundary lay three miles from the home that friends and strangers remodeled to accommodate her.

She asked herself, "Did I want to do this to my private life?" Still weak, still learning to walk, still trying to strengthen a badly damaged arm that she almost lost, Duckworth chewed it over for two months with her husband, whom she describes as a true partner: "He annoys me. I annoy him. He chews gum with his mouth open. I leave my legs lying around on the floor."

With a boost from her new political friends, Duckworth formally announced her candidacy on Dec. 18 on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos." In just two weeks, she raised $120,000, giving her more money than Cegelis or the third Democrat in the primary, evangelical Christian Lindy Scott.

Campaigning now under the tutelage of some of the most experienced Democratic strategists in Illinois, Duckworth stresses bread-and-butter issues. She speaks of the expanding reach of the alternative minimum tax and the rising cost of health care. She points out that she still has $70,000 in student loans and has fought through a health crisis.

Duckworth casts abortion and end-of-life decisions as private matters that should lie beyond the federal government's reach. If she wins the March 21 primary, she will face state Sen. Peter Roskam, a well-financed conservative Republican in a historically Republican district.

Whatever happens, she is confident she will be fine. "What the past year has done," she says, "is give me a fearlessness."

Duckworth is the first to say her campaign is about more than Iraq, but it is her opinions on the war that some questioners most want to hear. She tells them she supports the troops and believes the United States must persevere long enough to give Iraqis a chance.

But she believes the decision to invade was an error, and a badly executed error at that.

"I think it was a bad decision. I think we used bad intelligence. I think our priority should have been Afghanistan and capturing Osama bin Laden," Duckworth says. "Our troops do an incredible job every single day, but our policymakers have not lived up to the sacrifices that our troops make every day."

Asked whether she feels she lost her legs on an unworthy mission, she replies: "I was hurt in service for my country. I was proud to go. It was my duty as a soldier to go. And I would go tomorrow."

Duckworth has a recurring dream, often after watching news coverage of the war. She is back in Iraq, at the controls of her Black Hawk or doing desk duty in Balad. She has her legs. It took eight months for her dream personality to accept that the good health would evaporate at daybreak, but now she finds the sensation gratifying.

"In my dream, I usually know: 'Oh, I have legs. Cool. I'm going to run around.' "

That's how Duckworth feels about her second chance.