This Marine transitioned from leg amputation to modeling and elite sports

At a 2021 competition for athletes with disabilities, Marine Corps veteran Annika Hutzler met a 10-year-old girl who had an amputation below the knee just like her.

The girl’s mother asked Hatzler what he did for a living. Hutsler, who had just had an ad for fitness brand Athleta, recently left the Marine Corps to begin his modeling career.

“This girl’s eyes lit up,” Hatzler said. “She was like, ‘Mom! She’s that magazine girl.

“That moment hit me. This little girl is 10 years old and she’s from a small town in Texas. She’s the only girl in the whole school who looks like her — probably in her entire town.” She’s the only girl who looks like her.

Based in Los Angeles, Hutzler has starred in commercials, starred in Target’s print ads, and walked the runway for Tommy Hilfiger. She enjoys it because she can serve as a role model for others with her disability.

She appeared as Miss November in the 2023 fundraising calendar for Pin-Ups For Vets, a nonprofit dedicated to helping injured and sick veterans. According to the organization’s founder, Gina Elise, the calendar features her 13 female veterans who have collectively served her 101 years in the military.

Pin-Ups For Vets finds its calendar model through social media casting notifications, Elise says. Her two amputees, both Marine Corps veterans, are featured on her veteran pinup calendar.

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Hutzler is now an athlete who competes in high-level adaptive sports and models for popular brands. But when she enlisted in the Legion in 2017, her plans were simpler. She earned her commission through her commissioning program enlisted, which she would serve for 20 years until her retirement.

She began considering the military on the advice of a friend during her senior year at Northern Arizona University. She spoke with recruiters at each branch, and the Marine Corps stood out.

Hatzler enlisted three days after completing his bachelor’s degree. He trained hard at boot camp, and he even served as a squad leader.

However, halfway through her recruit training, she noticed pain in her right leg. Her drill instructor told her she was probably overreacting and her body would eventually adjust to the stress of boot camp.

“I kept that mentality,” Hatzler recalls. “I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m just weak. It’s going to get better, I’m going to get stronger, it’s going to work. And it never did.’

The Naval Medical Corps in Twenty-Nine Palms, Calif., where Hutzler began her training to become an electronics service technician, first diagnosed her with a stress fracture. However, about nine months later, it was discovered that she had a tumor on her foot. And it was growing rapidly.

In July 2018, she was sent to the West Coast Casualty Battalion.

After months of medical procedures, including multiple invasive surgeries, Hutzler asked doctors how long it would be before he had to amputate his leg. Her doctors gave her 5 to 15 years to live.

Hatzler said to the doctor.

Annika Hutzler competes in a truck race at the 2022 Department of Defense Warrior Games on August 25, 2022 in Orlando, Florida. (Cpl. Mitchell Johnson/Marine Corps)

“I had just turned 22 at the time,” she recalls. “I wasn’t going to waste my 20s knowing I was going to have my leg chopped off. I’d rather live an amputated life successfully than wait for it to happen.”

Before amputating his right leg below the knee, Hutzler sought guidance from other amputees on social media.

Comforted by their support, and fed up with the endless pain and surgeries of the past few years, she found hope in the upcoming amputation.

“Life never goes as planned”

Hutzler underwent amputation surgery in April 2019 and quickly returned to physical activity.

By that June, she had competed in the Paralympic-style Defense Warrior Games, winning silver medals in the 100- and 200-meter wheelchair races.

With the help of the Wounded Warrior Battalion program, she explored less mainstream sports such as archery and wheelchair rugby.

Since amputation, Hutzler has competed in snowboarding, track, field, shooting, swimming, archery, wheelchair rugby and seated volleyball. She also does other sports like rock she climbs, wake she surfs, ocean she surfs, yoga and golf.

Hutzler continues to compete in events for the disabled and veterans after medically retiring as an Army Corporal in January 2020. At her Warrior Games in Orlando, Florida, in August, she won her 10 medals in her six sports.

“For me, a medal is not the end goal,” she said. “The truth is, look at how far I’ve come and say, ‘Hey, just a few years ago, I was sitting in a barrack room, taking a lot of drugs, and now I’m doing everything here. These events on one foot.

Annika Hutzler snowboarding in Copper Mountain, Colorado, April 2021. (Annika Hatzler)

Snowboarding has a special meaning for Hatzler. Hutzler fell in love with the sport during his college years and his number one goal after his amputation was to get back into snowboarding again.

Using a snowboard-specific prosthesis, she was on a board eight months after the amputation. Now she hopes to compete in her 2026 Paralympics in this sport.

In addition to her athletic training, modeling, and numerous doctor’s appointments (2 to 10 times a week), Hutzler hopes to do more public speaking in the next few years.

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One of the key messages she likes to share with people, she said, is the importance of adapting when life doesn’t go as planned.

“If everything had gone my way, maybe I would have been a captain in the Marines and on my way to 20. But obviously it didn’t happen,” she said.

“It’s okay if life doesn’t go the way you want it to. After a tragedy, after an illness, you can still have a very good life. Even if you think all your plans have failed, you still have to live.” I have a life.”

Irene Loewenson is a staff reporter for the Marine Corps Times. She joined The Military Times in August 2022 as her Editorial Fellow. She graduated from her college at Williams and served as editor-in-chief of the student newspaper.

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