When Tammy Duckworth speaks for vets, it is from experience
Combat injuries reveal life purpose
When President-elect Barack Obama attended a Veterans Day service in Chicago earlier this month, a photograph that captured the somber moment ran on the front page of The Buffalo News and in newspapers around the country.
What made the photograph special was not who Obama is, but who he was with.
The woman standing beside him that day, her two artificial legs poking out from beneath the hem of her coat, was Tammy Duckworth, a 40-year-old National Guard major who lost her legs in November 2004 when a rocket-propelled grenade struck the Black Hawk helicopter she was co-piloting in Iraq.
The image of Duckworth with Obama — coming after a campaign season that often focused on the billions of dollars spent to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — drove home the reality of the high cost of battle for individual soldiers.
Duckworth has become a national symbol for combat veterans who have been left disabled during their service. She has become one of the nation’s leading advocates for veterans, and there is growing speculation that she could become a member of Obama’s Cabinet.
“I am incredibly patriotic,” Duckworth said in an interview with The Buffalo News. “I’m proud my family has been here to help create this country, but at the same time the immigrant side of me is grateful for the opportunities,” she said.
“I could never have become an assault helicopter company commander [in another country]. Where else would that have happened for a minority female? But it could happen here.”
After being wounded, Duckworth returned to the United States and was appointed by Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich as the director of the state’s Department of Veterans Affairs. The November 2006 appointment came after she narrowly lost a race for the House of Representatives as the Democratic candidate.
Duckworth has testified three times before Congress regarding the treatment of veterans. And she addressed the Democratic National Convention in August, praising Obama’s commitment to vets.
On that point, Duckworth could speak from personal experience. She recalled how then-Sen. Obama stopped by Walter Reed Army Medical Center to visit with her and other disabled veterans.
So while the president-elect and Duckworth are not exactly old buddies, Obama felt comfortable enough to get right down to business with her on Veterans Day.
“He wanted a status report. He asked, ‘How are our vets being treated?’ We have 3,000 Illinois Army National Guard members deployed.
“I told him there’s not uniformity in federal VA care and that we are working hard, but have a lot of work to do,” Duckworth said.
Before giving her a hug, Obama urged Duckworth to keep working.
Only in America, she added, could something so incredible happen to someone with her background.
A global journey
The journey to that special moment began in Southeast Asia, where Duckworth’s father, a veteran of World War II and the Vietnam War and later a captain in the Army Reserve, worked for the United Nations assisting refugees, as well as for multinational corporations.
Franklin Duckworth, who traced his family’s roots back as far as the American Revolution, married a native of Thailand who was of Chinese ancestry. They had two children, Tammy, whose full name is Ladda Tammy Duckworth, and a son, Thomas.
“I’m a daughter of the American Revolution and a daughter of an immigrant,” she said, proud of her heritage, which includes ancestors who have worn uniforms in every major American war.
Born in Thailand as an American citizen, Duckworth spent her childhood traveling, as her father’s work took the family all over Southeast Asia.
While living in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge’s takeover, Duckworth caught her first glimpse of war, though she did not realize it at the time.
“I remember watching bombings across the river from our house in Phnom Penh. I was probably 6 or 7. My dad told us it was fireworks and it was exciting to watch,” she said. “I remember Phnom Penh before it was destroyed. The smell of baked French bread brings me back to Phnom Penh. My mother and I would go shopping for it.”
Fluent in the Thai and Indonesian languages, Duckworth learned English when she was 8, and when she was 16, the family moved to Hawaii, where she spent most of her senior year of high school.
By then, she knew what she wanted to do in life.
Her brother followed in the footsteps of their father and joined the military, serving in the Coast Guard. But she had another vision.
“My dream job was to become an American ambassador. Growing up in Asia in the 1970s and 1980s, the American ambassador was always opening up hospitals or schools or going to ribbon- cuttings for some sort of a humanitarian mission,” Duckworth recalled.
So after graduating from Honolulu’s McKinley High School, where she was on the track, basketball and baseball teams, Duckworth attended the University of Hawaii and then, at 21, headed stateside to pursue a master’s degree in international studies at George Washington University in Washington, D. C.
“I wanted to be in the nation’s capital, and George Washington University had the highest pass rate for the Foreign Service Exam,” she said.
But by the time she graduated with her advanced degree, her boss at the Smithsonian Institution persuaded her to pursue a doctorate in political science, with a focus on Southeast Asian studies, so she could keep her diplomatic dream alive.
That took her to Northern Illinois University, and it was love at first sight, she said.
“The school was in the midst of cornfields, and the people were so warm and lovely,” she recalled.
Saved for a reason
Duckworth was in her second year of ROTC training when she moved to the Midwest. A year earlier, while still in Washington, she had met and married another ROTC cadet, Bryan W. Bowlsbey.
Duckworth’s education was interrupted when she was deployed to Iraq in 2003.
She was co-piloting a Black Hawk helicopter in November 2004, flying about 10 feet above a date and palm grove in Iraq, when a rocket-propelled grenade pierced the aircraft. Unaware that her legs had been shattered, Duckworth attempted to help land the craft safely before passing out.
Her right arm was also severely damaged and doctors had to fight to save it.
The horrific experience left Duckworth with the realization that her life had been spared for a reason — to help other veterans.
That is how she fills her days in Illinois, traveling across the state advocating for them.
Duckworth also has retained her passion for flight and flies small, fixed-wing aircraft. She recently participated in the Chicago Marathon, riding a hand-cranked cycle. Her father is deceased, but she is still close with her 67-year-old mother, Lamai, who lives in Hawaii but visits for the winter.
“I know it sounds crazy to leave Hawaii and come to Illinois for the winter, but she wants to be with us for the holidays,” Duckworth explained, adding that she and her husband have not ruled out having a family.
Her husband, a computer networking engineer, is currently activated and stationed at Fort Gordon, Ga. He, too, is a major in the Illinois Army National Guard and an Iraq veteran.
Knows what vets need
Duckworth has her own thoughts about what the VA should be doing for vets. She believes it needs permanent, not discretionary, funding; national rules on how to gauge the level of a veteran’s disabilities, and reductions in the long waits for rulings on disability pensions.
She cites her own experience.
“I have a buddy who lives in Texas with a similar arm injury, and his arm is considered more disabled than mine because he lives in Texas. That’s not right. There needs to be more uniformity,” she said.
Of the speculation that she could be appointed VA secretary, Duckworth says she has not discussed the Cabinet post with Obama, but said she would “always welcome the opportunity to serve.”
For now, she says, it was a thrill just to have spent Nov. 11 in the presence of the next president: “I got to call him ‘Mr. President’ for the first time.”
