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Illinois congresswoman ripped government contractor's dubious claim in House hearing in June By Katherine Skiba, Chicago Tribune reporter http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-duckworth-disability-bill-1113-20131113,0,1468072.story WASHINGTON— — U.S. Rep. Tammy Duckworth, in a follow-up to a dramatic House hearing last summer in which she accused a government contractor of "gaming" the system, plans to co-sponsor a bill Thursday to tighten the rules on who can receive veterans disability benefits and contract set-asides. The first-term Illinois Democrat, who lost both her legs and badly injured an arm in the Iraq war, ripped into the contractor during the June hearing because he claimed a service-related disability after a football injury at the U.S. Military Academy Preparatory School. U.S. Rep. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) testifies during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. (Mark Wilson, Getty Images / November 5, 2013)The contractor suffered his injury in 1984 at the school, which prepares candidates for West Point. But he never entered the four-year academy and later played four years of college football, even quarterbacking at the University of San Diego. Decades later, he received a 30 percent disability rating, began collecting monthly government disability checks and was given special status as a small-business owner with a disability related to military service, according to hearing testimony. "Shame on you," Duckworth scolded the contractor, Braulio Castillo, of Leesburg, Va., accusing him of breaking the trust of veterans and the nation. On Thursday, Duckworth will join Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., also a veteran, in introducing a bill to ensure cases like Castillo's don't recur. The two lawmakers call the bill the Support Earned Recognition for Veterans Act, or SERVe, said Anton Becker, a Duckworth spokesman. Included in the bill are provisions to end disability compensation claims based solely on attendance at a military prep school and to prevent people whose only service was going to such a school from obtaining set-asides as a "veteran-owned small business," Becker said. Castillo, who could not be reached Tuesday for comment, found himself on the hot seat at a hearing called by Issa's House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. In February, the committee began a probe of the Internal Revenue Service awarding contracts with what Issa called a potential value of $500 million to Castillo's firm, Strong Castle Inc. It led to the June hearing, where Castillo said he hurt his foot playing football at the school, informally called West Point Prep, and later re-injured it during an orienteering exercise, learning afterward that it was broken. At the hearing, Duckworth told Castillo her feet hurt too. "In fact, the balls of my feet burn continuously and I feel like there's a nail being hammered into my right heel right now. So I can understand pain and suffering and how service connection can actually cause long-term, unremitting, unyielding, unstoppable pain." Duckworth also told him: "You know, my right arm was essentially blown off and reattached. … I'm still in danger of possibly losing my arm. I can't feel it. I can't feel my three fingers." She pointed out that Castillo once wrote a government official saying he couldn't walk without pain and took pain medication twice a day, which he said were "crosses that I bear due to my service to our great country, and I would do it again to protect this great country." Duckworth then told Castillo: "I'm so glad that you would be willing to play football in prep school to protect this great country." Castillo, at the hearing, said reports that his firm had received $500 million in IRS contracts were not true and that his firm collected approximately $1 million, with other companies getting the rest. An IRS official said then that the agency was taking steps to sever ties to Strong Castle. Duckworth touted her legislation Tuesday in an email to supporters, a message that was accompanied by a fundraising appeal for contributions of $5 to $250.