page_title: Tammy Duckworth
section_title: Military service
hierarchical_section_title: Tammy Duckworth / Military service
caption_attribution_description: English: Then a captain in the Illinois Army National Guard, Tammy Duckworth stands by her UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter. Now a U.S. senator, Duckworth would spend 23 years in the Illinois Army National Guard retiring as a lieutenant colonel. Her helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade on Nov. 12, 2004. Duckworth lost both legs and partial use of her right arm in the explosion and received a Purple Heart for her combat injuries. She returned to Iraq in April 2019 visiting with Illinois Army National Guard Soldiers from the 108th Sustainment Brigade who are deployed there. (Submitted Photo)
context_page_description: Ladda Tammy Duckworth is an American politician and a former U.S. Army lieutenant colonel serving as the junior United States Senator from Illinois since 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, she represented Illinois's 8th district in the United States House of Representatives from 2013 to 2017.
  Duckworth was educated at the University of Hawaii and George Washington University. A combat veteran of the Iraq War, she served as a U.S. Army helicopter pilot. In 2004, after her helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade fired by Iraqi insurgents, she suffered severe combat wounds, which caused her to lose both of her legs and some mobility in her right arm. She was the first female double amputee from the war. Despite her grievous injuries, she sought and obtained a medical waiver that allowed her to continue serving in the Illinois Army National Guard until she retired as a lieutenant colonel in 2014.
  Duckworth served as Director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs from 2006 to 2009 and as Assistant Secretary for Public and Intergovernmental Affairs at the United States Department of Veterans Affairs from 2009 to 2011.
context_section_description: Following in the footsteps of her father, who served in World War II and the Vietnam War, and ancestors who served in every major conflict since the Revolutionary War, Duckworth joined the Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps in 1990 as a graduate student at George Washington University. She became a commissioned officer in the United States Army Reserve in 1992 and chose to fly helicopters because it was one of the few combat jobs open to women at that time. As a member of the Army Reserve, she went to flight school, later transferring to the Army National Guard and in 1996 entering the Illinois Army National Guard. Duckworth also worked as a staff supervisor at Rotary International headquarters in Evanston, Illinois and was the coordinator of the Center for Nursing Research at Northern Illinois University.
  Duckworth was working toward a Ph.D. in political science at Northern Illinois University, with research interests in the political economy and public health in southeast Asia, when she was deployed to Iraq in 2004. She lost her right leg near the hip and her left leg below the knee from injuries sustained on November 12, 2004, when the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter she was co-piloting was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade fired by Iraqi insurgents. She was the first American female double amputee from the Iraq War. The explosion severely broke her right arm and tore tissue from it, necessitating major surgery to repair it. Duckworth received a Purple Heart on December 3 and was promoted to Major on December 21 at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where she was presented with an Air Medal and Army Commendation Medal. She retired from the Illinois Army National Guard in October 2014 as a lieutenant colonel.
  In 2011 the Daughters of the American Revolution erected a statue with Duckworth's likeness and that of Molly Pitcher in Mount Vernon, Illinois. The statue was dedicated to female veterans.
caption: Captain Duckworth in 2000
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