My train­er and good friend Janet called me one after­noon in July. “Mari­no says Lily is bleed­ing.” Her voice was tight, strained. “He says there’s a lot of blood.” Lily is a gray Azteca mare. Mari­no is the man who feeds my hors­es and mucks out the stalls.

“I’ll go over there now,” I said.

“Call me when you get there. I’ll come in if it’s as bad as he says.”

When I arrived at the barn, Lily stood at her stall door. She looked alert, her ears pricked up, her eyes clear.

Inside her stall, I found blood smeared on the wall and crim­son stains in the wood shav­ings of her bed­ding. Lily’s lush white tail was soaked red, and blood stained her back legs.

I lift­ed her tail. On its under­side near the top, a black tumor the size of a crab-apple had burst and gushed blood.

Look­ing at the blood in the stall and on Lily, I pieced togeth­er what hap­pened. The huge tumor caused Lily dis­com­fort. She backed up against the wall and rubbed the tumor against it, push­ing so hard it ruptured.

Lily is 16. I bought her when she was 8. Her pre­vi­ous own­er abused her. When we brought her home, she was afraid of men – me, the vet, Mari­no. Janet was able to work with her, but when I approached, she ran to the oth­er side of her cor­ral and stared at me fearfully.

I vis­it­ed her every day, talked soft­ly to her, and plied her with treats. About two weeks into it, she final­ly allowed me to touch her. See Lily’s Song for the full story.

Short­ly after that, I found two small hard knots on her shoul­der. Years ear­li­er I’d seen growths like that on my dog. I knew what they were.

I called the vet. In addi­tion to the knots, he found a string of mar­ble-sized black lumps on the under­side of Lily’s tail. He con­firmed my fears. “Lily has melanoma,” he said.

Equine melanoma is com­mon among gray hors­es. About 80 per­cent of them become afflict­ed with it at some point in their lives. The can­cer­ous tumors are usu­al­ly locat­ed on the lips, around the eyes, along the neck, or on the under­side of the tail. Over time, the tumors often mul­ti­ply and grow larger.

There is no cure, but if the tumors don’t attack vital organs or impede bod­i­ly func­tions, a horse with melanoma may live to old age with­out sig­nif­i­cant adverse effects.

“Is there any­thing we can do to improve Lily’s chances?” I asked the vet.

“There’s a vac­cine for dogs,” he said. “Some dog vets will pre­scribe it off-label for hors­es. It doesn’t elim­i­nate the tumors in hors­es, but it some­times slows their growth. It’s expen­sive, and it often doesn’t work. Most own­ers let the can­cer take its course and hope it doesn’t kill the horse.”

At my vet’s request, a dog vet pre­scribed the vac­cine for Lily. We gave her shots every six months for the next six years. It seemed to work. The tumors didn’t grow much and remained con­fined to the under­side of her tail.

Two years ago, pro­duc­tion prob­lems severe­ly cur­tailed the sup­ply of the drug. All off-label pre­scrip­tions for hors­es were ter­mi­nat­ed. The dog vet cut Lily off. We couldn’t get the drug anywhere.

With­out the vac­cine, Lily’s tumors grew rapid­ly, bal­loon­ing to the size of ping-pong balls, and spread over the entire under­side of her tail in one con­joined mass.

In July, sev­er­al large tumors erupt­ed, ooz­ing a brown pus that ran down Lily’s tail. The vet said there was noth­ing we could do oth­er than clean her wounds, try to con­trol the infec­tions, and hope they heal.

They did not. Foul-smelling pus drained from them almost con­tin­u­ous­ly. Wear­ing plas­tic gloves and face­masks, Janet and I washed and dis­in­fect­ed them every day. Then, the biggest tumor rup­tured and bled.

She stood per­fect­ly still at the wash rack while I bathed the bloody tumor in warm water. It stopped bleed­ing, and I coat­ed the wound with an anti­sep­tic cream. Although the sores on her tumors had to be painful to the touch, Lily hadn’t flinched through all our efforts to treat them, and she didn’t flinch that day. She seemed to know we were try­ing to help her.

In bed that night try­ing to find sleep, I couldn’t stop think­ing about Lily. Life dealt her a cru­el hand. Her pre­vi­ous owner’s abuse caused injuries to her shoul­ders and legs that nev­er ful­ly healed and con­tributed to the ear­ly onset of arthri­tis. Her gait is irreg­u­lar, and she strug­gles on down­hill grades. We give her med­ica­tion dai­ly to ease the pain.

Her psy­cho­log­i­cal dam­age runs even deep­er. We can’t erase entire­ly her mem­o­ries of the abuse, but Janet and I have earned her trust. We groom her and pet her every day. I spend extra time with her when­ev­er I can, stroking her gen­tly and speak­ing to her soft­ly. “Good girl. Pret­ty girl. I’m so proud of you.”

Per­haps because of her dark his­to­ry, Lily responds to affec­tion with more sen­si­tiv­i­ty and love than oth­er hors­es. Janet says she’s the most soul­ful horse she’s ever worked with. I feel that, too.

I felt it most last sum­mer. The doc­tors found an extreme­ly aggres­sive form of der­mal melanoma in my shoul­der beneath the skin. They were wor­ried it had spread to oth­er parts of my body. I was scared. I went to Lily’s stall the morn­ing after my diag­no­sis. I stood beside her, my arm over her back, my fore­head pressed against her neck. I don’t know if she under­stood, but it felt like she knew. I vis­it­ed her sev­er­al times dur­ing the tests and treat­ment. Although I don’t under­stand how or why, those vis­its gave me courage and hope. See The Can­cer Club for that story.

As I lay awake the night after Lily’s tumor burst, I couldn’t shake the feel­ing I was let­ting her down. I was can­cer-free, but she was still trapped in its con­strict­ing grip.

In the morn­ing, I called the vet and asked him to pull out all the stops to find the vac­cine. I told him I didn’t care where he had to go or what he had to do. I’d pay to fly it in from any­where in the world; I’d buy it on the black mar­ket; I’d do any­thing to get that drug. My emo­tions over­whelmed me, and I broke down.

The vet’s a good guy. He called the dog vet and begged her for the drug. Maybe he cried, too. I don’t know, but what­ev­er he did, it worked.

The dog vet gave us the vac­cine, and we resumed the shots in July. My vet also added an antibi­ot­ic to Lily’s dai­ly feed, hop­ing it might heal the drain­ing sores, and Janet tried a new dis­in­fec­tant spray on the wounds.

The infec­tions cleared. Lily’s con­di­tion sta­bi­lized. Her ener­gy lev­el returned to nor­mal. Things looked good.

For a lit­tle while.

In August, Janet called me over to Lily’s stall. “Something’s wrong,” she said.

Lily loves car­rots. Janet had giv­en her one. It lay at her feet. She picked it up gin­ger­ly with her lips, dropped it, retrieved it, and dropped it again. She couldn’t chew it.

Most hors­es won’t let you probe inside their mouths and Lily is less trust­ing than oth­ers, but I was able to sep­a­rate her lips long enough to glimpse a small black lump. My heart sank.

I called the vet. After giv­ing her a tran­quil­iz­er, he exam­ined her mouth. “She has tumors inside her jaws on both sides,” he said. “They’re small but there are a lot of them.”

This is the end of the line, I thought. The tumors only imped­ed her chew­ing of hard food so far, but I assumed it was just a mat­ter of time until they metas­ta­sized and pre­vent­ed her from eat­ing any­thing. She would slow­ly starve, and I would have to con­front a heart­break­ing deci­sion to end her suffering.

While I strug­gled to hold my emo­tions togeth­er, the vet con­tin­ued to probe inside Lily’s mouth.

“Her low­er molars are long and sharp,” he said, sound­ing excit­ed. “Remind me, have we ever float­ed her teeth?”

“No.”

“How old is she?”

“16.”

We stared at each oth­er hopefully.

As hors­es age, their molars grow and some­times devel­op sharp points that make chew­ing uncom­fort­able. This usu­al­ly occurs at about age 15. “Float­ing” is a den­tal pro­ce­dure where the vet uses a pow­er tool, a spin­ning wafer-sized rasp mount­ed on the end of a long met­al col­umn, to file down the sharp points. Lily was 16, and we had nev­er float­ed her teeth.

The vet got his rasp, and I held Lily’s head while he float­ed her back molars.

When the tran­quil­iz­er wore off, Lily attacked a batch of car­rots with her usu­al enthusiasm.

“It wasn’t the tumors,” the vet said. “It was her teeth. If we’re lucky and the vac­cine works, the tumors in her mouth won’t grow large enough to become a problem.”

So, Lily lives on. But I’m a real­ist. Her room in the Can­cer Hotel grows dark­er every day. We’re fight­ing hard – Lily, Janet, the vet, and I – but can­cer is relent­less. That dark day I dread so much still lurks out there somewhere.

Mean­while, I’m try­ing hard to fol­low Janet’s advice to live in the present, like Lily does. Lily’s hap­py and con­tent. She’s eat­ing well and hold­ing her weight. We pony her off Jack­son, her favorite bud­dy, and lunge her in the cor­ral. I groom her every day, stroke her neck and face gen­tly, and speak soft­ly to her. “Good girl. Pret­ty girl. I’m so proud of you.”

And I tell myself we still have time. We still have time.

I was rid­ing Marge on the old Ahman­son Ranch on a cloudy morn­ing in May when a swarm of bees attacked us. A few bees buzzed around me, but most of them went after Marge, swirling around her head, dive-bomb­ing her face and neck. Shak­ing her head so vio­lent­ly it became a red blur, she backed up with short stomp­ing steps and hopped side­ways off the trail into tall grass.

The prospect of being thrown from a horse con­cen­trates the mind, espe­cial­ly if you’re 77 with dou­ble knee replace­ments. Janet, my rid­ing train­er, had schooled me well. I tight­ened my legs around Marge’s bar­rel, pressed my boots down firm­ly so I wouldn’t lose my stir­rups, gave Marge more reins to shake off the bees, and focused on stay­ing cen­tered and balanced.

Des­per­ate­ly try­ing to free her­self from the bees, Marge spun in a cir­cle, stopped, jumped for­ward, backed up again, shook her head, and danced around fran­ti­cal­ly, but the bees stayed with her. Scared and stung, Marge began to buck, not big bucks, but a series of short lit­tle hip-hops.

I’d held my seat up to that point, but I expect­ed her lit­tle bucks to esca­late at any moment. I’d seen Marge buck­ing just for fun in her cor­ral, kick­ing her back hooves in the air high­er than her head, twist­ing to one side and then the oth­er. No way I could stay on her back through those rodeo-bron­co bucks. I braced for a bone-break­ing fall.

But the big kicks nev­er came. Instead, Marge lunged for­ward and broke into a full-on gal­lop across an open field.

Marge is an Amer­i­can Quar­ter Horse, a breed known for quar­ter-mile bursts of speed up to 45 mph. She can fly, and we did. I didn’t even try to rein her in. She was in run­away mode, and there was noth­ing I could have done to slow her down. I just held on as best I could.

About fifty yards into it, the wind from Marge’s bul­let-speed peeled the bees away. They streamed by our sides like twin dark cir­rus clouds. She ran until the bees were far behind us, then slowed down, and pulled up in a clear­ing near the ranch’s gate into Hid­den Hills.

Janet was rid­ing Jack­son about twen­ty yards ahead of Marge and me when the bees attacked. The trail dipped into a lit­tle swale lined with Cal­i­for­nia live oaks. There must have been a bee­hive in those trees that Janet and Jack­son stirred up when they went through. Com­ing along right after them, Marge and I bore the brunt of the attack.

After Marge out­ran the bees, Janet and Jack­son came up behind us at the gate. “Good rid­ing,” Janet said.

“Thanks. You get stung?”

“No,” she said as she dis­mount­ed. “The bees went after you and Marge. Jack­son and I got off easy.”

Marge was still great­ly dis­tressed, shak­ing her head and pranc­ing ner­vous­ly. I jumped off and held her head while Janet pulled two stingers from her neck. There had to be more, but we couldn’t find them.

Marge was too upset for me to ride her, so we led the hors­es down Long Val­ley Road to the barn. The whole way, Marge leaned against me, rub­bing her face and neck against my shoul­der. She was try­ing to ease the pain of the stings, but it also felt like she want­ed my reas­sur­ance that we were safe. “Easy, girl,” I said again and again. “We’re okay now.”

I stayed with Marge at the barn longer than usu­al that day, pet­ting her, hug­ging her, and giv­ing her cook­ies and car­rots. I didn’t leave until I was sure she’d calmed down.

That night as I lay in bed, I thought about the bee attack. Hors­es are prey ani­mals. Their instinc­tive reac­tion to dan­ger is to run. The flight reac­tion is imprint­ed in their genes, passed down over mil­len­nia through thou­sands of gen­er­a­tions of wild hors­es. When the bees attacked, Marge car­ried 165 pounds of dead weight on her back. Scared and in pain, she should have thrown me so she could run away faster. It should have been an instinc­tive compulsion.

But she didn’t throw me. I thought about Marge for a long time that night.

I took up horse­back rid­ing at the age of 70. (See For The Love of Hors­es.) Sev­en years ago, four months after my sec­ond knee replace­ment, I climbed on a horse while Janet held her in place. That horse was Marge, a sor­rel (red­dish brown) mare, small, 14 ½ hands (4 feet 2 inch­es tall at her with­ers), strong, with a wide chest and round­ed, well-mus­cled hindquarters.

Janet pur­chased her from a barn in Stock­ton. She had a horse named But­ter back then, so she named her new horse Margarine.

I learned the basics of horse­back rid­ing on Marge’s back. After that first ride, I rode Marge and no oth­er horse almost every day for three months. I bought her from Janet that spring.

I have five hors­es now. I don’t play favorites, but if forced to choose one, I’d lean toward Marge. She’s mis­chie­vous, play­ful, and perky. She loves kids and dotes on my grand­chil­dren, espe­cial­ly the lit­tle ones. And she loves Car­rot Man.

She won’t allow me to be in her pres­ence with­out giv­ing her my full atten­tion, for­ev­er nudg­ing and bump­ing my back and shoul­der and rip­pling her lips over my arm. Some­times, she even tries to groom my hair.

She’s jeal­ous when I pet anoth­er horse, kick­ing her stall door and paw­ing the ground until I give up and come back to her.

I ride five or six days a week. Of all my hors­es, I’ve clocked the most time on Marge, 700 rides over the last sev­en years being a con­ser­v­a­tive esti­mate. You devel­op a part­ner­ship with a horse over so many rides. Marge and I know each oth­er well. I can tell what she’s think­ing, and I feel like she knows what’s going on in my head. I talk to her some­times, espe­cial­ly when I’m trou­bled. And for some mag­i­cal rea­son, stress melts away when I’m with her.

Don’t tell any­one this because it’s kind of embar­rass­ing, but some­times on solo rides I sing to her. “Margie, Margie, pump­kin pie/Kiss the boys and make em cry.” I think she likes it. I mean she pricks up her ears and all. That’s a sign she likes it, right?

Twice I thought I might lose Marge. The first time was a few months after I bought her from Janet. A horse has lit­er­al­ly 100 feet of intestines. A lot can go wrong inside her bel­ly. Kinks, block­ages, and obstruc­tions can cause col­ic, a painful and some­times fatal con­di­tion. Marge got it bad. She laid down in her cor­ral and wouldn’t get up.

The vet was tend­ing to anoth­er emer­gency and couldn’t come till lat­er in the day, so Janet took charge, keep­ing in touch with the vet by phone. We made Marge get up, walked her around, gave her a water-hose ene­ma (believe me, you don’t want to know the details), and fed her soupy bran. By the end of the day, the log­jam broke, and Marge recov­ered ful­ly. We caught it ear­ly and she was prob­a­bly nev­er in seri­ous jeop­ardy, but I was an equine neo­phyte at the time, and I was afraid she wouldn’t make it. Even that ear­ly in our rela­tion­ship, she had a firm grip on my heart.

A more seri­ous health threat occurred one morn­ing three years ago. When I arrived at the barn and opened the stall door, Marge lift­ed her right front hoof and extend­ed it toward me. There was a deep slic­ing gash across her fet­lock (sim­i­lar to the human ankle). In the crevice of the cut, I could see bone. Blood had drained down over her hoof, and she couldn’t bear her full weight on that leg.

I knew more about hors­es by then. I knew that leg injuries are often fatal and that she prob­a­bly wouldn’t sur­vive a sev­ered ten­don or dis­abled fet­lock joint.

With my heart in my throat, I texted a pho­to of the wound to the vet. He dropped every­thing and raced to my barn. Look­ing grim, he exam­ined the wound and test­ed the fet­lock. It only took a few min­utes, but it seemed like hours to me.

“We can treat this,” he said, let­ting out a long breath. “She’ll be all right.”

I turned away from him and wiped my eyes.

As I lay in bed the night after the bee attack, I could still see the look in Marge’s eyes three years ago when she lift­ed her hoof to show me the wound to her leg. I saw pain and fear in her eyes, but there was some­thing more, too. There was trust. She knew she was in trou­ble, and she was count­ing on me.

The day after the bee attack, I met Janet at the barn. “I’ve been think­ing about yes­ter­day,” Janet said. “Marge could have thrown you if she’d want­ed to, you know. She let you stay on her back to pro­tect you.”

“I think you’re right,” I said. “It seemed like she did the best she could not to hurt me.”

“I know I’m right. Any oth­er horse would have thrown you off.”

My bond with Marge did not come cheap. Tons of car­rots and cook­ies, tens of thou­sands of pets and hugs, putting up with count­less demand­ing bumps with her muz­zle and buck­ets of horse spit on my shirt and in my hair, inces­sant­ly wor­ry­ing about every hic­cup that might sig­nal anoth­er bout with col­ic, and open­ing her stall door every morn­ing scared to death of what she might have done to her­self this time. And there’s the singing. Don’t for­get the singing.

It paid off, though. In pain and fac­ing a threat she didn’t under­stand, Marge fought off the over­whelm­ing equine instinct for self-preser­va­tion and sac­ri­ficed flight speed to car­ry me away from the danger.

“That horse loves you, Ken,” Janet said.

This is true; it’s a great gift; and it goes both ways.

Post Script: Rid­ing pal, Annabel, solved the mys­tery of Marge’s leg wound. She found dried blood on the wall below a piece of tin under a barn win­dow in Marge’s stall. In an inex­plic­a­ble acro­bat­ic maneu­ver, Marge must have reared up against the win­dow and slashed her leg on the tin’s sharp edge. It was a fluke acci­dent, but I ripped out every piece of met­al in my stalls.

Adren­a­line and fear for your life are effec­tive anti­dotes to bee ven­om, I guess. Although I felt no pain dur­ing the attack, I found sting-welts on my arms, neck, and back after I left Marge at the barn.

At 4:30 p.m. on Novem­ber 12, 2004, a rock­et pro­pelled grenade (RPG) blew through a Black Hawk helicopter’s plex­i­glass chin bub­ble at the feet of its pilot, Cap­tain Tam­my Duck­worth, and det­o­nat­ed in her lap, vapor­iz­ing her right leg, blow­ing her left leg up into the instru­ment pan­el, and shred­ding her right arm. The chop­per went into a steep descent. Going in and out of con­scious­ness, Duck­worth grabbed the stick with her left hand and tried to guide the craft to a safe land­ing, but with­out legs she couldn’t press the floor-ped­al controls.

Co-pilot, Dan Mil­berg, unin­jured in the blast, brought the chop­per down safe­ly in a small clear­ing about five min­utes flight time from the Taji, Iraq, air­field. It hit the ground hard in an upright posi­tion, its rotor blades jolt­ing to a stop. When Duck­worth reached for the lever to shut off the engine, she passed out.

Behind Duck­worth and Mil­berg in the cab­in, the copter’s oth­er two crew mem­bers were seri­ous­ly injured. The RPG tore apart Sergeant Chris Fierce’s leg, and an AK-47 round hit door gun­ner Kurt Han­ne­mann in the low­er back.

Mil­berg knew they had to get out of there because the Iraqi insur­gents, who shot them down from a grove of palms about 500 yards away, would be run­ning as fast as they could to the clear­ing to fin­ish them off.

In Iraq, Black Hawks flew mis­sions in pairs. Mil­berg jumped out of the cock­pit and fran­ti­cal­ly waved down the com­pan­ion Black Hawk hov­er­ing over­head. It imme­di­ate­ly land­ed in the clearing.

Han­ne­mann stum­bled out of the downed chop­per. As the door gun­ner, his job was to “defend the perime­ter” while the oth­ers made a run to safe­ty. With the entire back of his uni­form soaked in his own blood, light­head­ed, and going into shock, the 23-year-old sol­dier stag­gered across the clear­ing and placed him­self and his M4 between the chop­pers and the expect­ed arrival point of the bad guys.

Mil­berg helped Fierce out of the Black Hawk and turned to Duck­worth. Her list­less body slumped for­ward into her shoul­der har­ness, her right leg gone, her left leg sheared at the shin but hang­ing on by a thread of flesh, the skin and mus­cle of her right arm pul­ver­ized, its bones shat­tered, her tor­so and face rid­dled with hot shrap­nel, blood drench­ing her uni­form. Tammy’s dead, Mil­berg thought.

The Amer­i­can Soldier’s creed is unequiv­o­cal: “I will nev­er leave a fall­en com­pan­ion.” Even a dead one.

Mil­berg pulled Duckworth’s life­less body out of the cock­pit. He and Matt Back­ues, of the res­cue copter’s crew, draped her arms over their shoul­ders and ran for the wait­ing Black Hawk. She was so slick with blood they dropped her, picked her up, and dropped her again. Mil­berg then saw that Fierce couldn’t walk on his crushed leg and peeled off to help him while Back­ues grabbed the shoul­der strap of Duckworth’s flight vest and dragged her across the clearing.

Han­ne­mann retreat­ed from the perime­ter and climbed on board the res­cue copter. Back­ues hand­ed Duckworth’s tor­so up to him, and he lift­ed her into the cab­in, her left leg flop­ping along behind, that thread of flesh still hold­ing it on. The oth­ers scram­bled in, and the Black Hawk took off.

As it sped toward Taji, Fierce stared at buck­ets of blood slosh­ing around on the floor. Where did all that blood come from? He’d applied a tourni­quet to his man­gled leg, and it had stopped bleed­ing. Hannemann’s wound had stopped bleed­ing, too. Sud­den­ly, it dawned on him. Duckworth’s heart was still pump­ing. He shout­ed to the oth­ers that she was alive! The pilot radioed Taji to have a Medi­vac copter ready to speed her to the sur­gi­cal hos­pi­tal in Baghdad.

The Medi­vac touched down in Bagh­dad at 5:24 p.m., less than an hour after the RPG explo­sion. As the nurs­es trans­ferred her to a mobile gur­ney, she regained con­scious­ness. She remem­bered the shoot­down, but noth­ing after that.

“Where are my guys?” she shouted.

“Just relax,” they told her. “We’ve got peo­ple tak­ing care of them.”

But she wouldn’t relent, demand­ing infor­ma­tion about the wel­fare of her crew all the way into the oper­at­ing room. When a nurse began to give her anes­the­sia, she grabbed him by the scrub, pulled him to her, and looked him dead in the eyes. “You bet­ter take care of my guys!” she said. Then she fell back, and every­thing went black.

In 2010, I’d con­tributed time and mon­ey for a decade to Los Ange­les Pub­lic Coun­sel, the nation’s largest pro bono law firm, rep­re­sent­ing more than 25,000 low-income chil­dren, adults, and fam­i­lies. In 2009, I helped Pub­lic Coun­sel launch a Cen­ter for Vet­er­ans’ Advance­ment to aid vet­er­ans over­come pover­ty, employ­ment bar­ri­ers, home­less­ness, and phys­i­cal and men­tal health issues.

Each year Pub­lic Coun­sel throws a big fundrais­ing ban­quet and gives an award to an indi­vid­ual who has made sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to its caus­es. In 2010, Pub­lic Coun­sel gave its annu­al award to the Unit­ed States Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Vet­er­ans Affairs.

Because of my involve­ment with the Cen­ter, Pub­lic Coun­sel gave Cindy and me seats beside the hon­oree. When we arrived at the Bev­er­ly Hilton Hotel’s ban­quet room for the awards cer­e­mo­ny, the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary was already there, her wheel­chair pushed up close to the head table. We sat down next to her and intro­duced ourselves.

“Tam­my Duck­worth,” she said, shak­ing our hands. “It’s an hon­or to meet you.”

She hadn’t received much press back then. I only knew bare-bones facts about her. Born in 1968 in Bangkok, Thai­land, to a Thai-Chi­nese mom and a U.S. Army dad, and raised in Hon­olu­lu, Hawaii, she joined the Army in 1992 and became a heli­copter pilot. After the RPG attack, she spent a year reha­bil­i­tat­ing from her injuries in Wal­ter Reed Hos­pi­tal in Bethes­da, Mary­land. While there, she helped oth­er patients secure ben­e­fits. That sparked an inter­est in gov­ern­ment ser­vice on behalf of vet­er­ans, which even­tu­al­ly led to her appoint­ment to the Depart­ment of Vet­er­ans Affairs.

Flash­ing a pix­ie grin, upbeat, and fun to talk to, she gave me sug­ges­tions about the Cen­ter and some con­tacts who could help us, but she wasn’t all busi­ness. She asked about our chil­dren and beamed as we bragged on them. It was obvi­ous she loved kids, but at 42, she was child­less. I won­dered if her injuries were the reason.

When they pulled her chair away from the table to wheel her back­stage for the award pre­sen­ta­tion, I saw the extent of those injuries for the first time. Her right leg was ampu­tat­ed up high near the hip; her left leg was gone just below the knee; and her right arm was laced with fleshy skin grafts.

Mike Far­rell, a U.S. Marine Corps vet­er­an and the actor who played Hawkeye’s side­kick on M*A*S*H, intro­duced her. She emerged from behind the cur­tains, walked across the stage on pros­thet­ic legs, and took her place behind the lectern, main­tain­ing that pix­ie grin all the way.

Speak­ing with­out notes in a con­ver­sa­tion­al tone, she talked about the shoot­down, focus­ing on the hero­ics of the 23-year-old door gun­ner, Kurt Han­ne­mann. Scared out of his mind, in great pain, and bleed­ing pro­fuse­ly, he put his life at risk, she said, to defend the perime­ter and pro­tect the crew. Pub­lic Coun­sel makes that same stand, she told us. “You rep­re­sent the voice­less, the pow­er­less, the poor, and the dis­abled. You’ve been run­ning to the fight for years, mak­ing a stand, say­ing ‘You’re not get­ting through me. I’m here to defend these peo­ple and the val­ues I believe in.’” She empha­sized the impor­tance of our work for vet­er­ans. “Tonight, there are young brave Amer­i­can men and women strap­ping on body armor right now. They need to know you’re on that perime­ter. They need to know you’ll be here to help them when they return.”

She almost died defend­ing her coun­try. For most of us in the audi­ence, our only sac­ri­fice was writ­ing checks and vol­un­teer­ing in our spare time, and yet she closed her remarks by thank­ing us for our ser­vice to the nation.

I’ll nev­er for­get that speech. This coura­geous sol­dier, who lost both legs, a big chunk of her right arm, and half the blood in her body, stood before a crowd of rich lawyers dressed in thou­sand-dol­lar suits and silk ties, sit­ting in the lap of lux­u­ry in Bev­er­ly Hills, our bel­lies full from a ban­quet fare of filet mignon and choco­late souf­fle, and made us feel like we were the real heroes. Her grace, brav­ery, and good humor made me want to give back so much more.

As Mike Far­rell said at the end of the cer­e­mo­ny, “By God, she’s inspiring!”

Tam­my Duck­worth is now the junior Sen­a­tor from Illinois.

I’m glad I was wrong about her injuries. In 2014 at age 46, she had a baby girl, and in 2018 at age 50, she became the first Sen­a­tor to give birth while in office, anoth­er baby girl.

In 2020, she made the short list of poten­tial run­ning mates for Joe Biden, but he wor­ried that Repub­li­cans would attack her eli­gi­bil­i­ty because she was born in Thai­land. “I’ve beat­en every ass­hole who’s come after me with that,” she told Biden. He chose Kamala Har­ris instead. I can’t help won­der­ing what course his­to­ry would have tak­en if he’d cho­sen Sen­a­tor Duckworth.

Polit­i­cal pun­dits say that Democ­rats are search­ing des­per­ate­ly for a leader and that those who have stepped for­ward so far haven’t gen­er­at­ed much enthu­si­asm. Sen­a­tor Duckworth’s name nev­er comes up.

I don’t write polit­i­cal posts, main­ly because pol­i­tics makes me sick (see Polit­i­cal Angst for more on that), but I’ll break my rule here to say this.

The epi­graph to Sen­a­tor Duckworth’s 2021 mem­oir, Every Day is a Gift, is the U.S. Army War­rior Ethos: “I will always place the mis­sion first. I will nev­er accept defeat. I will nev­er quit. I will nev­er leave a fall­en comrade.”

If you’re look­ing for a leader, you might want to con­sid­er an Amer­i­can hero, who has lived her whole life by that creed.