“Does your foot hurt,” Duckworth asked Castillo. “My feet hurt too. In fact, the balls of my feet burn continuously, and I feel like there’s a nail being hammered into my heel right now. So I can understand pain and suffering, and how service connection can actually cause long-term, unremitting, unyielding, unstoppable pain.”

Duckworth read from a letter Castillo sent to a government official in which he describes the severe pains from his foot injury as “crosses that I bear in my service to our great country. And I would do it again to protect this great country.”


“I’m so glad that you would be willing to play football in prep school again to protect this great country,” said Duckworth. “Shame on you, Mr. Castillo. Shame on you. You may not have broken any laws… But you certainly broke the trust of this great nation. You broke the trust of veterans.”

“Iraq and Afghanistan veterans right now are waiting an average of 237 days for an initial disability rating, and it is because people like you who are gaming the system are adding to that backlog so that young men and women who are suffering from post-traumatic stress, who are missing limbs, cannot get the compensation and the help that they need.”

“You, who never picked up a weapon in defense of this great nation, very cynically took advantage of the system. You broke the faith with this nation. You broke the faith with the men and women who lie in hospitals right now.”

“Twisting your ankle in prep school is not defending or serving this nation, Mr. Castillo,” the congresswoman concluded.