Email editor@ballotpedia.org to notify us of updates to this biography. Duckworth was born in Bangkok, Thailand, in 1968. She lived in Thailand and Singapore before she moved to Hawaii with her family when she was 16. She graduated from the University of Hawaii at Manoa in 1989 and earned a master's degree in international affairs from George Washington University in 1992. She earned a Ph.D. from Capella University in 2015. Duckworth was a member of George Washington University's ROTC program. Duckworth is an Iraq War veteran. Duckworth served four years as a helicopter pilot in the U.S. Army Reserve before joining the Illinois National Guard in 1996. While a member of the Guard, Duckworth deployed as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. In 2004, Duckworth's helicopter was shot down, leading to the amputation of both of her legs. She was later awarded the Purple Heart. She retired from the Guard in 2014 at the rank of lieutenant colonel. In 2006, Gov. Rod Blagojevich appointed Duckworth director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs. In 2009, President Barack Obama appointed Duckworth as assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Duckworth represented Illinois' 8th Congressional District from 2013 to 2017. She was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2016.