March 12 is Tammy Duckworth’s 56th birthday. She was born in Bangkok, Thailand. Her father was from the US, and her mother was Thai. Although she was born in Bangkok, her father worked for the United Nations in refugee housing and development, and the family moved frequently throughout Southeast Asia. As a child, Duckworth became fluent in Thai, Indonesian, and English.
When Duckworth was 16, the family moved back to the US, to Honolulu, where Duckworth finished her high school education. She earned a BA degree in political science from the University of Hawaii in 1989, and then attended George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where she earned a master’s in international affairs. She began a PhD program at Northern Illinois University. However she had joined the US Army Reserve in 1992, and her PhD studies were interrupted when she was called to active duty in Iraq. She was a helicopter pilot, which she picked because it was one of a very short list of combat jobs available to women.
In 2004 her helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. Duckworth lost both legs in the crash, but survived to become the first American double amputee from that conflict. She also lost some mobility in her right arm. The normal process after such a severe injury is to be discharged from the military, but Duckworth received a waiver and continued to serve in the National Guard for another ten years.
She began working in government in 2006 as the director of the Illinois Department of Veteran’s Affairs, and moved to the federal Veteran’s Affairs department in 2009. Then in 2012 she was elected to the US House of Representatives. After two terms she was elected to the US Senate, where she still serves.
She’s accumulated a long list of “firsts,” including being the first Thai American woman elected to the US Congress, the first person born in Thailand elected to Congress, the first woman with a disability and first double amputee elected, and the first US Senator to give birth while in office. In fact, the Senate changed a rule to enable her to bring her new baby to the Senate with her, and thus she also became the first US Senator to cast a vote while holding a baby.
She finished her PhD in 2015, holds ten military honors, and in 2010 was inducted into the Army Women’s Hall of Fame. Her memoir, Every Day is a Gift, was published in 2021.
