Sweet: Once Durbin’s guest, Duckworth returns as Senate colleague

WASHINGTON – Almost 12 years ago, I met an Illinois soldier wounded in the Iraq war in Sen. Dick Durbin’s Capitol conference room shortly before then President George W. Bush delivered a State of the Union speech.

Durbin invited the Army officer, who was recovering at Walter Reed, the military hospital, to be one of his guests in the House chamber for Bush’s speech. Her name was Tammy Duckworth.

That was on Feb. 5, 2005. Duckworth had lost both legs and shattered her right arm after her helicopter was shot down just a few months before, on Nov. 14, 2004.

I asked her that night about the Iraq war. “Wherever my president sends me is where I want to go,” Duckworth told me then.

On Tuesday, by co-incidence, I was in the very same spot where I first met that impressive soldier from Hoffman Estates.

I was interviewing Duckworth again — less than an hour after she was sworn in as the junior senator from Illinois — in that very same Durbin conference room.

When Duckworth and I first met neither of us could have possibly guessed it was the day that launched her on a path that led to the Senate.

Durbin was impressed by Duckworth. She kept in touch and by the end of 2005 she was in Democratic politics. She lost her 2006 bid for a Chicago suburban House seat.

She became director of the Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs and then an assistant secretary at the VA. She tried again in 2012 for a House seat and won.

Duckworth defeated incumbent Sen. Mark Kirk R-Ill., in November.

On Tuesday, I asked her about that day we met in Durbin’s office, where she was leaving the hospital for the first time.

“I didn’t know that I could make it through the day, but I wanted to come to the State of the Union and see the institution that I had given up my legs protecting,” Duckworth said of that 2005 day when she left Walter Reed for a few hours.

“Here I am, 12 years later, having been able to continue to serve. And in this room was the first step towards finding that new mission for me, outside of the military but a mission that I feel has been hopefully as important as what I did in the military for my nation.”

As for her new Senate career: “My game plan is to be here for a long time and work really hard for the people of Illinois and for my country as long as they’ll have me here.”

Born in Bangkok, Duckworth, 48, is the first Thai-American woman in the Senate. Raised in Hawaii, she ended up in Illinois to attend grad school at Northern Illinois University. In 2014, Duckworth gave birth to her daughter Abigail. Her retired military husband, Bryan Bowlsbey, is a civilian Pentagon employee, working in cybersecurity.

In the House, Duckworth carved out a niche dealing with military affairs. She did not have the seniority for a seat on the Senate Armed Services Committee. She is on three committees: Energy and Natural Resources; Environment and Public Works; and Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

“Because I didn’t get Armed Services I was able to get on Energy, which is going to be very vital for Illinois with our nuclear power plants and … with renewable energy, So I’m excited about that. And I got on Commerce.”

I asked Duckworth about working in a Senate polarized since the 2008 election of President Barack Obama. Senate Republicans erected a blockade against Obama. With the White House, House and Senate in GOP hands, and with President-elect Donald Trump a wild card, how can a Democratic senator be productive?

“I’ve just decided that if I can find a way to pass legislation that’s going to help Illinois, I will,” Duckworth said.

“If the administration, the new administration moves ahead with some of their campaign promises, like infrastructure, like renegotiation of TPP [the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact], I will be there with them to help find ways to compromise and negotiate. … I decided that if I can find a way to work with the new administration I will,” she added.

“But if they go after things that affect the lives of working people across this country, then I will stand up and oppose them. … But I’m not going to say ‘no’ just off the bat — I’m not going to do to them what they did to President Obama.”