Tammy Duckworth on her new role

The Eye profiles Veterans Affairs Assistant Secretary Tammy Duckworth -- an Iraq veteran and double amputee -- in Wednesday's Post, noting that she "has moved from the battlefields of Iraq to the halls of power in Washington, becoming part of a team headed by VA Secretary Eric K. Shinseki, a former Army chief of staff, and Deputy Secretary W. Scott Gould, a Navy veteran, that is trying to overhaul an agency that's been called moribund and out of touch."

"More than 24 million U.S. veterans are alive today, according to VA. Of those, about 1.5 million served in Iraq or Afghanistan. Duckworth, 41, knows that her age, gender and injuries set her apart from most of the veterans she meets. But part of her job is connecting older veterans with younger ones, traveling at least twice a week to visit VA facilities and speak before veterans."

In the video above, watch Duckworth defend the Obama administration's veterans record and explain how she plans to celebrate her fifth "alive day" on Thursday.

(Video by Ed O'Keefe and Pierre Kattar)