State legislator, city councilor, U.S. Senate aide, war veteran, congressional nominee, media star.

Add “role model” to the latest titles for Tulsi Gabbard, the Democrat who is one election away from serving in Washington, D.C.

In her first Hawaii appearance since winning the primary and becoming a media darling at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., Gabbard shared her inspirational story with high school students at St. Andrew’s Priory School in downtown Honolulu.

St. Andrew’s, Hawaii’s oldest girls’ school (it was founded in 1867 by Queen Emma), invited Gabbard because she is seen as “an inspirational female role model,” according to the school.

What Gabbard, 31, had to say was that she is still overwhelmed by the dramatic turn of events that brought her from 45 points down to primary opponent Mufi Hannemann in February to a 20-plus-point victory Aug. 11. But it was hard work that got the job done, she said.

Gabbard also shared personal details — like how she still is nervous when it comes to public speaking — and how she and her conservative parents agree to disagree on social issues like gay marriage and abortion.

“It’s been an incredible journey,” she said.

A Shy Child

At some point, Gabbard’s meteoric rise will level off and she’ll be just one of 435 members in the U.S. House. To do that, of course, she also has to get by a feisty Republican opponent Nov. 6.

Gabbard did not come to talk politics with St. Andrew’s girls. Instead, she came to talk about public service.

A politician talking about public service can often sound self-serving. But Gabbard wasn’t trying to win over any votes with this crowd.

She talked directly to the girls, speaking to them in the same school gymnasium that she used to take trampoline classes.

Gabbard said she was a shy girl with three older brothers and a younger sister much more outspoken than her.

“I did not enjoy dealing with people,” she said. She was even unable to talk to store cashiers. “I was happy in my own little world.”

Gabbard may have been shy, but she was also into surfing and martial arts. Still, the last thing she would have thought growing up, she told the girls, was that she would have a life in public service.

And yet, she said she enjoyed community work. Though speaking in public made her feel like throwing up — her words — she worked at improving her skills. (She said she still gets nervous before talks and said that she sometimes unexpectedly tears up.)

The first time Gabbard stepped out of her “comfort zone” was when she decided to run for the state House at age 21. She was terrified to campaign door to door and introduce herself, but she said she felt a calling in her heart.

What she heard from others at the time, however, was the same thing she heard when she ran for Congress this year: that she was too young, too inexperienced, that she should wait her turn.

Gabbard ended up defeating four other opponents — a nurse, a military office, an engineer and a retired state worker — to become Hawaii’s youngest-ever legislator. But she also experienced a sobering up of sorts.

Sign-waving after election day in Waipahu, a woman shoved a note onto her car windshield. It said, “Don’t let us down.”

“Whatever cloud I was on, I came crashing down,” she said.

Off to War

Gabbard did not stay in the Legislature for long. In 2004 her National Guard unit was activated for duty in the Middle East, and soon she was off to basic training in South Carolina.

She managed to keep it quiet during most of her training that she was an elected official because, she said, she did not want any special treatment. There was none; she and 75 women were thrown into a room about one-fourth the size of St. Andrew’s gym, with six bathrooms to share and a short time to shower and dress.

All Gabbard had learned before, she said, “went out the window” when she was thrown together with people of “many different colors, ethinicities, religions, sizes, shapes. … You have to overcome petty stuff, or else you fail as a group.”

At this point, Gabbard did inject politics into her St. Andrew’s Priory talk. What’s wrong in Washington, she said, is that a dysfunctional Congress is not working toward the same goal.

More life lessons to impart: The sign outside the medical unit in Iraq where she served her first tour read, “Is today the day?” Daily enemy attacks, sometimes multiple, reinforced for Gabbard that time is finite.

“Your time can come anytime,” she said. “It’s not up to us. Make a difference with the time you have on this planet. I hope you take it seriously.”

Her second tour was in Kuwait, where Gabbard’s job was to train Kuwaiti military police.

Gabbard has told the story of what she encountered — read Civil Beat’s Tulsi Gabbard’s Leftward Journey — namely, discrimination from men who refused to respect and listen to a woman in charge. Some would not even shake her hand or look her in the eye.

The lesson for Gabbard, who eventually won the men over, was that discrimination still exists, including across the United States. What helped her persevere, she said, was Hawaii’s culture of aloha that allows people to disagree with one another yet still find common ground. The key to that is respecting one another.

Gabbard’s war experience in authoritarian countries also changed her views on gay and women’s rights, among other things, putting her on the other side of the ideological divide from her parents, Mike and Carroll Gabbard. Government should not be a “moral arbiter,” Tulsi realized.

Despite their differences, Gabbard remains very close to her mom and dad, the latter a state senator.

“I could not have asked for better parents,” she said.

Follow your dream, Gabbard told St. Andrew’s Priory: “That is what is is all about. That’s why I get up in the morning.”

Credit: Pat Bigold Media Consulting