# Tammy Duckworth **Ladda Tammy Duckworth** (b. March 12, 1968, Bangkok) is a Democratic U.S. senator from Illinois, in office since **January 3, 2017**, and a retired Army National Guard lieutenant colonel who lost both legs flying combat missions in Iraq. ## Why she's on the map Duckworth is the Senate's most credentialed voice against the politicization of the military, which is what makes her relevant to the civil-military material in this knowledge base. When an administration asks soldiers to carry out contested orders, or recasts criticism of a defense secretary as an attack on the troops, she is the member whose standing to answer is hardest to dismiss. She has also been the chamber's principal legislator on disability rights, leading the opposition to the ADA Education and Reform Act (H.R. 620) in the 115th Congress. ## Military service Commissioned in the Army Reserve in 1992, she became a helicopter pilot and transferred to the Illinois Army National Guard in 1996. She deployed to Iraq in 2004. On **November 12, 2004**, a rocket-propelled grenade struck the UH-60 Black Hawk she was co-piloting; she lost her right leg near the hip and her left leg below the knee, and her right arm was severely injured. She received the Purple Heart and retired from the Guard as a lieutenant colonel in October 2014. She was the first American female double amputee of the Iraq War. ## In the Senate She defeated Republican incumbent Mark Kirk 55–40 in November 2016 and was re-elected in 2022, so she next faces voters in 2028. She serves on **Armed Services**, **Commerce, Science and Transportation**, **Foreign Relations** and **Veterans' Affairs**, and leads for Democrats on the Commerce subcommittee covering aviation operations, safety and security — the perch from which she has pressed aviation-safety oversight. She authored the Public Safety Officer Support Act, which extended federal death benefits to line-of-duty suicides and deaths tied to traumatic brain injury and PTSD. Duckworth was the first Thai American woman and the first person born in Thailand elected to Congress, the first woman with a disability elected to Congress, and the first senator to give birth while in office, in 2018. She served as a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee from 2021 to 2025. ## See also - [[Mark Kelly]] — The other combat-veteran senator at the center of the civil-military fights of 2026 - [[United States Senate]] - [[Democratic Party]]