As a member of the Hawai`i National Guard, Tulsi Gabbard served two tours of duty in the Middle East. She was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal for her service and was recently commissioned as a Captain.

A Democrat, Tulsi was the youngest woman in America ever elected to a state legislature when in 2002 at the age of 21 she won a Hawai`i State House seat. Two years later, Tulsi sacrificed her position in the legislature to voluntarily join her fellow soldiers being deployed to a war zone in Iraq. Between her two deployments to the Middle East, Tulsi served as an aide to Senator Daniel Akaka in the U.S. Senate. In 2010, she was elected to the Honolulu City Council where she chairs the Safety, Economic Development, and Government Affairs committee. Gabbard is a candidate for Hawai`i's second congressional district encompassing rural Oahu and the Neighbor Islands.