Many people who have lost limbs like to disguise the fact, seeking out artificial replacements that look like the real deal — but not Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth.
The 50-year-old veteran lost both of her legs while serving in Iraq in 2004, but would much rather wear robotic prosthetics over skin-tone ones.
Posing for Vogue’s October issue, Senator Duckworth explained that those realistic-looking prosthetics — so like her old legs, but still so unlike them — simply remind her of her loss, while the metallic ones remind her of her strength.
In the mag: Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth posed for Annie Leibovitz for the October issue of Vogue
Duckworth, a Democrat who represented Illinois’s 8th district in the United States House of Representatives before getting elected to the Senate in 2016, has both types of prosthetic legs.
Preferred: Though she has prosthetics that look like real legs, they remind her of her loss – whereas her metallic ones remind her of her strength
One pair were hand-painted to match her skin tone and even adorned with freckles to look like the rest of her body. The toes, too, were modeled to be the same size as the ones she lost.
But the Senator doesn’t like to wear them.
‘When I see myself wearing those legs in a mirror, I see loss,’ she said.
Instead, she prefers her steel-and-titanium prosthesis, explaining: ‘But when I see this, I see strength. I see a reminder of where I am now.’
The same goes for her wheelchair, which she is quite proud of.
‘People always want me to hide it in pictures. I say no! I earned this wheelchair. It’s no different from a medal I wear on my chest. Why would I hide it?’ she said.
Duckworth earned that medal, a Purple Heart, while serving in Iraq at age 36. On November 12, 2004, she was flying back to her base after getting groceries when the plane was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade.
High-flyer: Duckworth earned a Purple Heart while serving in Iraq at age 36
Life change: She was piloting a plane that was shot down, and she had to have both of her legs amputated
‘It wasn’t an accident; those suckers were trying to kill me,’ she said
It went up through the floor, blasting her legs. Duckworth tried to land the plane, but passed out, after which her copilot took control.
When asked about the ‘accident’ that led to her double amputation, she was quick to make correct her interviewer.
‘It wasn’t an accident; those suckers were trying to kill me,’ she said.
And her crew did in fact assume she was dead once they landed. Still, they took the time to retrieve her body and got her to a combat hospital, where she was saved. She was later transferred to Walter Reed, where doctors also discussed possibly having to amputate an arm, too.
Still, she said, ‘I am no hero. The guy who carried me out of there? He’s the hero.’
From the way she fights for veterans and women’s rights, though, there are many who would beg to differ — and who are in awe of what she’s done.
Duckworth was also the first member of the Senate to give birth while in office, to two little girls: Abigail, now three, and Maile, who was born earlier this year.
The Senator posed in her office with both of her little girls for the new issue of Vogue, cpatured for Annie Leibovitz’s camera
Speaking about having babies, Duckworth remarked on the language doctors used about her pregnancies — including one when she was 50.
Thankful: Her crew thought she was dead but went back for her body anyway. Said Duckworth: ‘I am no hero. The guy who carried me out of there? He’s the hero’
Kids: She and her husband Bryan Bowlsbey now have two little girls after trying for years to start a family
‘Geriatric pregnancy,’ she said ‘Geriatric! Not even advanced maternal age!’
Duckworth and her husband had actually been trying to have a family for nearly a decade before she got pregnant the first time. They tried naturally and went to a fertility doctor recommended by the VA.
That doctor told her that the daily X-rays she had at Walter Reed might have affected her ability to get pregnant, and eventually told her that she was too old and it wasn’t going to happen.
The couple was looking into adoption when a friend recommended a specialist in Chicago — who had a different opinion, and successfully employed IVF to help Duckworth and her husband have two daughters.
The Senator later found out, quite frustratingly, that the original fertility doctor she saw was at at a Catholic facility, which didn’t allow the fertilization of embryos outside the body — and didn’t even tell her that would be an option, she just had to go somewhere else.
‘What bugs me to this day is that she never said, “You need to go to a different kind of facility,”‘ she said. ‘I was educated! I was the director of Illinois Veterans Affairs. I didn’t do my due diligence, so what about those other families?’
These days, she’s balancing a very demanding job with two very little kids, which definitely takes its toll.
‘I am tired. I am overwhelmed,’ she said. ‘Who isn’t? The average American mom is tired. So many of us are numb from the trauma of having a president who acts the way he does.’
But, she added, ‘It doesn’t matter if I am tired. I am going to show up every day and fight. If that means I have to crawl to get a vote, I am going to do it.’