Every Day Is a Gift

Every Day Is a Gift

by Tammy Duckworth
Every Day Is a Gift

Every Day Is a Gift

by Tammy Duckworth

eBook

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Overview

In this New York Times bestselling book, learn the incredible story of Illinois senator and Iraq War veteran Tammy Duckworth and see what inspired her to follow the path that made her who she is today.​

In Every Day Is a Gift, Tammy Duckworth takes readers through the amazing—and amazingly true—stories from her incomparable life. In November of 2004, an Iraqi RPG blew through the cockpit of Tammy Duckworth's U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter. The explosion, which destroyed her legs and mangled her right arm, was a turning point in her life. But as Duckworth shows in Every Day Is a Gift, that moment was just one in a lifetime of extraordinary turns.

The biracial daughter of an American father and a Thai-Chinese mother, Duckworth faced discrimination, poverty, and the horrors of war—all before the age of 16. As a child, she dodged bullets as her family fled war-torn Phnom Penh. As a teenager, she sold roses by the side of the road to save her family from hunger and homelessness in Hawaii. Through these experiences, she developed a fierce resilience that would prove invaluable in the years to come.

Duckworth joined the Army, becoming one of a handful of female helicopter pilots at the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom. She served eight months in Iraq before an insurgent's RPG shot down her helicopter, an attack that took her legs—and nearly took her life. She then spent thirteen months recovering at Walter Reed, learning to walk again on prosthetic legs and planning her return to the cockpit. But Duckworth found a new mission after meeting her state's senators, Barack Obama and Dick Durbin. After winning two terms as a U.S. Representative, she won election to the U.S. Senate in 2016. And she and her husband Bryan fulfilled another dream when she gave birth to two daughters, becoming the first sitting senator to give birth.

From childhood to motherhood and beyond, Every Day Is a Gift is the remarkable story of one of America's most dedicated public servants.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781538718490
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Publication date: 03/30/2021
Sold by: Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format: eBook
Sales rank: 383,170
File size: 55 MB
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About the Author

Senator Tammy Duckworth is a former U.S. Army lieutenant colonel who has served as the junior United States Senator for Illinois since 2017. A proud Iraq War veteran and helicopter pilot, she represented Illinois's 8th district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2013 to 2017. Before election to office, she served as Assistant Secretary for Public and Intergovernmental Affairs in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (2009-11) and Director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs (2006-09).

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Half Child 1

Chapter 2 Country Woods 20

Chapter 3 Cast Away 38

Chapter 4 Booze Cruises and Buckets of Roses 58

Chapter 5 Surviving 81

Chapter 6 "The Females at Advanced Camp Are All Fucked Up" 103

Chapter 7 Rotorhead 130

Chapter 8 Iraq 169

Chapter 9 Wall of Pain 200

Chapter 10 Owning the Suck 225

Chapter 11 Soldier's Creed 256

Chapter 12 Pandora's Box 288

Chapter 13 Gift from the Heavens 315

Chapter 14 A Score to Settle 351

Acknowledgments 381

About the Author 387

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