The Duckworth Diary - May 17th, 2013

Statement

Dear Neighbors,

I was honored to have been able to spend Mother's Day weekend in Afghanistan, visiting our troops, meeting with Afghan leaders and assessing the situation on the ground.

Many of the troops I met with have gone through multiple deployments and all have sacrificed a great deal to further our mission in Afghanistan. During my visits with our service members, I had the privilege of distributing cards made by students at Highland Elementary School in Elgin and Stone School in Addison. The kind notes of gratitude were deeply appreciated. The troops loved the cards so much some of them asked for extra cards to bring back to share in their barracks. One service member there who is in the Italian Army teared up when she got one too. Mother's Day knows no language boundaries!

In my meetings with the leaders of our military and the Afghan military and government, I stressed the need to continue our pursuit of terrorist groups, protect our troops in harms way and continue the gradual drawdown of our military presence over the next year. To learn more about my trip, check out my photo diary on Facebook.

Closer to home, the federal government issued a major disaster declaration for Cook, DuPage and Kane counties this week in response to the recent severe storms and flooding across our district. This declaration will make federal funding available to help our communities and families rebuild. If you have any questions about applying for federal assistance, or any other flood-related issues, please don't hesitate to call my office at 847-413-1959.

Best,

Congresswoman Duckworth

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