Our constituent service staff is here to help you cut the red tape and get your questions answered.

Some recent successes:

--One constituent was approved for Social Security disability but did not receive the retroactive pay for which she qualified. Rep. Quigley's office found out that Social Security had misplaced her file, and she received the payment of the money owed.

--Another constituent contacted Rep. Quigley's office because he did not receive his economic stimulus payment. Our staff contacted Social Security, and due to an error with his address, his check had been returned to the U.S. Treasury. The check is in the process of being reissued.

--With the help of Rep. Quigley's staff to cut the red tape on stalled medical assistance and Social Security applications, Everett Atkinson says "he doesn't know where he'd be without the help" and that "government health care saved his life."

Read this story about how Congressman Quigley's office was able to help one family get closure after over fifty years.

War records recovered after 55 years

June 16, 2009

By MARK LAWTON

from the Franklin Park Herald Journal

Fifty-five years after the Korean War ended, a Franklin Park woman finally found out what happened to her soldier brother.

On May 29, Esther Banicki received records from the National Personnel Records Center. Those records came at the behest of U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley, D-5th.

Banicki spent most of her life wondering about the fate of her brother, Stanley J. Samczyk, who enlisted in the army in 1947 at age 16.

Banicki, who was five years younger than her brother, remembers the first telegram. It arrived Sept. 1, 1950.

"It was the middle of the night," Banicki said. "My two older sisters got the telegram, that he was missing in action. My mother had a heart attack as the result of the telegram."

Four years passed. It was 1954 (the war ended in 1953) when the family got another telegram, saying that Samczyk was alive, though a prisoner of war.

The family got on local television with everyone given a chance to say how glad they were. Three months later, however, the family received another telegram saying the military was shipping the body.

"It sounds like a screw-up, but what are you going to do?" Banicki said.

The body, however, was never shipped. Over the decades, the family made efforts to find out what had happened. They contacted the Red Cross, government offices the military and looked online.

In the meantime, Banicki finished high school, got married and raised four children. She worked on the assembly line at Motorola in Franklin Park and also did office work.

She didn't lose her curiosity about what happened to her brother, though.

"That was my brother's life," Banicki said. "He's not just some throwaway kid. I want to know what happened."

This year, Banicki contacted the office of then U.S. Rep. Rahm Emmanuel. When Quigley took over, he requested the records on Banicki's behalf.

About 30 pages long, the records include a killed in action report and six medals. The records don't say how he died.

"Now I know where in Korea he was," Banicki said. "They found a grave. I even got laundry bills and stuff like that."

In then end, Banicki has mixed emotions.

"I'm glad I got papers," Banicki. "I'm glad he got so many medals. Of course, I'd like to have him."