Tammy Duckworth was born in Bangkok, Thailand.

Tammy's father was a veteran of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps who traced his roots to the American Revolutionary War.

Her mother is Thai Chinese.

While Tammy's father worked in refugee, housing, and development programs, the family moved around Southeast Asia.

In 2004, Tammy was deployed to Iraq as a Blackhawk helicopter pilot for the Illinois Army National Guard.

In November that year, Tammy's helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) and she lost her legs and partial use of her right arm. She spent the next year recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where she became an advocate for her fellow soldiers.

Tammy served in the Reserve Forces for 23 years before retiring at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

After she recovered, she became director of the Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs, where she established a crisis hotline and developed programs to improve access to housing and health care.

In 2009, former President Barack Obama appointed Duckworth as an assistant secretary of Veterans Affairs, where she coordinated a joint initiative with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to help end Veteran homelessness and worked to address the unique challenges faced by female as well as Native American Veterans.

In 2012, she was elected to the House of Representatives and became the first Asian-American from Illinois elected to Congress. She was elected to the Senate in 2016 after representing Illinois’s Eighth Congressional District in the House of Representatives for two terms.

In the U.S. House, she served on the Armed Services Committee and was an advocate for working families and job creation, introducing bills like the Friendly Airports for Mothers (FAM) Act to ensure new mothers have access to safe, clean, and accessible lactation rooms when traveling through airports, which is now law.

She also passed the Troop Talent Act to help returning Veterans find jobs in the private sector.

In the U.S. Senate, she advocates for solutions needed to move our state and country forward like rebuilding infrastructure, growing manufacturing jobs while supporting minority-owned small businesses, investing in communities that have been ignored for too long, and making college more affordable for all Americans.

In 2018, after Duckworth became the first Senator to give birth while serving in office, she sent a message to working families by securing a historic rules change that allows Senators to bring their infant children onto the Senate floor.

As Senator, she serves on the Armed Services Committee; the Environment & Public Works Committee; the Commerce, Science, & Transportation Committee; and the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Committee. The first Senate bill she introduced—which supports Illinois jobs by helping prevent bureaucratic delays in infrastructure projects—became law in record time.

U.S.Senator Tammy Duckworth is a Purple Heart recipient and was among the first handful of Army women to fly combat missions during Operation Iraqi Freedom. She attended college at the University of Hawaii and earned a Master of Arts in International Affairs from the George Washington University.