Tammy and her crewchief Dan.

SM: One last question: Not to get too philosophical, but what do you think life is really all about?
Tammy Duckworth: Oh my goodness! [laughs] For me, life is about living up to my personal sense of what’s right and wrong. People think that it’s the big decisions that are really the hardest, but I think a lot of times it’s the small decisions. When you go grocery shopping and the cashier accidentally gives you five extra dollars in change and you don’t realize it until you get home—do you make that small decision? Do you get back in the car and drive to the store and give that five dollars back or not? It’s not the big decision of “Do I need to fly this helicopter into a firefight and save those men;” it’s the small ones that you don’t think twice about that affect your moral center. What’s important to me is living up to that.

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