By Sarah Greer, WTC Stratcom
This morning, AW2 Veteran Kortney Clemons inspired the AW2 Advocates and staff at Annual Training. His warm, up-beat style and incredible story of resilience captured our attention and brought the crowd to its feet.
Kortney Clemons lost his right leg above the knee after an improvised explosion device (IED) explosion in Iraq in 2005. Since then, he’s gone on to become a Paralympic-level athlete and the national Paralympic champion in the 100 and 200 meters. He also does the long jump, and earlier this year, he set a U.S. record in the 200 meters at the Paralympic World Championships in Christchurch, New Zealand. He’s focused on the 2012 Paralympic Games in London, where he plans to be a medal contender.
When Kortney set the American national record in Christchurch, he didn’t win the race. But he did achieve his personal best–29.2 seconds, beating his previous time by more than a second.
“I’ve learned to stay in my lane,” he told the crowd. “If I do everything I’m supposed to do in my lane, I know I’ll be successful.”
On top of his athletic accomplishments, Kortney is also working on his master’s degree through the AW2 Education Initiative at Kansas University.
Kortney charged all of the Advocates to develop a plan to succeed with each individual Soldier on their caseload, much like he’s following a plan to prepare for the 2012 Paralympic Games and to complete his degree.
“I came up with a plan. I believed in my plan. I stuck to my plan. And now I’m executing my plan,” he said. “And I have to trust that it will work.”
Kortney also emphasized the importance of visualizing yourself succeeding and accomplishing your goals.
“I got to practice my podium walk today,” he grinned. “When I’m training, I visualize myself standing on the podium in London.”
All of us felt lucky and honored to be in the room while Kortney shared his message of preparing for success. And inspired to put it into action. I know I’ll be applying Kortney’s outline to my own life, and I expect many of the Advocates feel the same way.