Tulsi Gabbard Instagram – “I knew that I needed to be somewhere that I could impact those tough decisions, but I didn’t immediately go to Congress. You know, honestly, when I came back home to Hawaii, I wasn’t sure how or where I would make an impact. I was looking at a few opportunities with different organizations that were working on foreign policy and veteran issues. After that first deployment, I began serving as a legislative aide to Hawaii’s (then) U.S. Senator Dan Akaka, who was chair of the Veteran Affairs Committee at the time. He’s a World War II veteran, as was his partner, U.S. Senator Daniel K. Inouye, a Medal of Honor recipient, who served in the famous ‘Go For Broke’ 442nd Infantry Division, the most decorated infantry division in the Army’s history. The all Japanese division was formed because the rest of the military didn’t want to serve with Japanese Americans. Working in Washington for Senator Akaka as he chaired the Veteran Affairs Committee was a great learning opportunity for me, and I was able to bring real time experience to some of the decisions and policies that he was pushing forward. As anyone who serves knows, even the best of ideas that trickle downhill become yet another death by PowerPoint. Everybody’s signed in, somebody had this great idea, and we have to listen to this PowerPoint presentation. But really, is it achieving the impact that was intended? No, not at all. I was able to share my very recent experiences having just returned from a deployment, or having just gone through TAPS, etc. Especially as Guardsmen and women, the redeployment transition, what services are offered, and so on and so forth. Giving them that honest feedback that they weren’t getting from the VA or from the DoD was very helpful.” — LTC Tulsi Gabbard (Army, OIF Veteran) @tulsigabbard