This Marine went from a leg amputation to modeling and elite sports
By Irene Loewenson
Oct 21, 12:08 AM
Annika Hutsler poses for a photoshoot for the calendar of Pin-Ups For Vets, a nonprofit geared toward helping injured and ill veterans. (Pin-Ups For Vets)
At a 2021 competition for athletes with physical disabilities, Marine Corps veteran Annika Hutsler met a 10-year-old girl who, like her, had a leg amputation below the knee.
The girl’s mother asked Hutsler what she did for a living. Hutsler ― whose ad for fitness brand Athleta had just come out ― had recently left the Marine Corps and had started modeling.
“This little girl’s eyes lit up,” Hutsler said. “She’s like, ‘Mom! That’s the girl from the magazine.’”
“It hit me at that moment: This little girl is 10 years old, from a middle-of-nowhere Texas town. She’s the only girl in her whole school who looks like her — probably the only girl in her whole town who looks like her. And now she’s opening up a mainstream magazine that they just happen to get, and they see somebody who looks like her.”
https://www.militarytimes.com/veterans/2022/10/21/this-marine-went-from-a-leg-amputation-to-modeling-and-elite-sports/
