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|branch = Illinois Army National Guard |serviceyears = 1992–2014 |rank = 15px Lieutenant Colonel |unit = 25px 106th Aviation Regiment, 28th Infantry Division |battles = Iraq War |awards = Purple Heart Meritorious Service Medal Air Medal Army Commendation Medal with Oak leaf cluster Army Reserve Components Achievement Medal with four Oak leaf clusters 25px Combat Action Badge 25px Senior Army Aviator Badge}} Ladda Tammy Duckworth (born March 12, 1968) is an American politician who has been the U.S. Representative for Illinois's 8th congressional district since 2013. A Democrat, she is the first Asian American woman elected to Congress in Illinois, the first disabled woman to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, and the first member of Congress born in Thailand. Duckworth previously served as Assistant Secretary for Public and Intergovernmental Affairs in the United States Department of Veterans Affairs from April 24, 2009 to June 30, 2011, and as the Director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs from November 21, 2006 to February 8, 2009. An Iraq War veteran, Duckworth served as a U.S. Army helicopter pilot and suffered severe combat wounds, losing both of her legs and damaging her right arm. She was the first female double amputee from the war.〔 Having received a medical waiver, she continued to serve as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Illinois Army National Guard along with her husband, Major Bryan W. Bowlsbey, a signal officer and fellow Iraq War veteran. Duckworth retired from the army in October 2014, and was reelected to Congress in November. Duckworth is running for the U.S. Senate in 2016. ==Early life, education, and military service== Tammy Duckworth was born in Bangkok, Thailand, to Frank and Lamai Duckworth. Her American father, Franklin, who died in 2005,〔O'Connor, Philip. "Downed Pilot Finally Hears Uplifting Words She Awaited." ''St. Louis Post-Dispatch'', June 27, 2005. Article available at Arlington Cemetery website page for Franklin G. Duckworth. ()〕 was a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who traced his family's roots in the Americas back to before the Revolutionary War. Her mother, Lamai, who is Thai, has Chinese ancestry. Because of her father's work with the United Nations and international companies, the family moved around Southeast Asia. Duckworth became fluent in Thai and Indonesian, in addition to English. The family settled in Hawaii when she was sixteen. Duckworth attended Singapore American School, and for a few months in her senior year was at the International School Bangkok. She graduated with honors from McKinley High School in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1985, after skipping the ninth grade. She graduated from the University of Hawaii in 1989 with a Bachelor of Arts in political science, and received a Master of Arts in international affairs from George Washington University. Following in the footsteps of her father and ancestors, who served in the Revolutionary War, World War II, and the Vietnam War,〔 Duckworth joined the Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps as a graduate student at George Washington University in 1990. 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. As a member of the Army Reserve, she went to flight school, later transferring to the Army National Guard and entering the Illinois Army National Guard in 1996. Duckworth was working towards 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〔''Honolulu Advertiser'', (Can-do spirit rises from crash ) March 17, 2005; accessed August 22, 2012.〕 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.〔("The pedals were gone, and so were my legs" ), June 14, 2005, ''Stars and Stripes''.〕 She is the first female double amputee from the Iraq war. The explosion "almost completely destroyed her right arm, breaking it in three places and tearing tissue from the back side of it." The doctors "reset the bones in her arm and stitched the cuts" to save her arm.〔 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.〔 Duckworth worked as a staff supervisor at Rotary International headquarters in Evanston, Illinois. She retired from the Illinois Army National Guard in October 2014 as a lieutenant colonel.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.il.ngb.army.mil/PAO/newsrelease.aspx?id=1146 )〕 She returned to school and completed a PhD in Human Services at Capella University in March 2015. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Tammy Duckworth」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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