DREAMS OF FLIGHT


She graduated high school with honors and then won a full scholarship sponsored by DOD in Washington, D.C., graduat- ing from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Mullins worked four summers as an intelligence analyst intern at the Pentagon, holding a top- secret security clearance.


AN ATHLETIC TURN She learned two major lessons at the Penta- gon. Te first was about hard work. She’d had jobs since she was 12—paper route, frozen yogurt shop, babysitting, mowing lawns—but at the Pentagon, she learned how long a workday could last. “I remem- ber thinking as a teenager, ‘Wow. If I even spent half this time every day on school- work, I’d be like a genius.’ It was the kind of thing where it really made me value time. It also made me understand some- thing about myself, which was that I am a self-starter, like a leader. I like teams. I like to play on a team.”


LEGS FOR ALL OCCASIONS


Te second lesson she learned was that she chafed under bureaucracy. “Tere are certain elements of bureaucracy which are necessary to run an organization that huge, but some of them really didn’t— it didn’t make me happy. … I just knew, wow, I’ve got to do something else with my life.”


Her scholarship included a five-year commitment to DOD, but “my life took such a different turn, so I paid the whole thing back with interest.”


That different turn began her sopho- more year at Georgetown, when someone suggested to the very active Mullins that she participate in the National Disabled Sports Championships in Boston. At first the idea didn’t appeal to her—it seemed like an exercise in building self-esteem, which she didn’t lack. But she decided to give it a try. To prepare, she went to


132 Army AL&T Magazine Summer 2020


Among her other accomplishments, Mullins has accumulated an impres- sive collection of prostheses—some of them incredibly realistic. There’s a pair for 1-, 2- and 3-inch heels, each requiring different angles between the leg and foot. (Photo by Kenneth Willardt, L’Oréal)


a nearby track, where someone had to explain to her that the 100 meters was the part of the track that was the straightaway. Her first effort left her exhausted after 50 meters. A couple more tries, though, and she felt ready. By this point, she had only met one other amputee in her life.


She arrived in Boston to find a world she never knew existed. Athletes wearing carbon-graphite-rubber composite pros- thetics were competing in every event. Her clumsy, wood-plastic composite legs appeared to be no match, but she ran the 100-meter sprint anyway. And beat the American record holder. With a new American record.


Ten she decided to compete in the long jump—after learning no women were signed up for the long jump, she saw another 1st place medal was there for the taking. While waiting her turn to jump, a fellow athlete pointed out that as a BKDA—below-knee double amputee— she wasn’t supposed to long jump. All long jumpers needed one flesh-and-bone leg to use as their plant leg. “Well, nobody told me that, and I’ve already jumped twice, so I might as well keep doing it,” she recalled in her commencement address to North- eastern University graduates in 2018.


When Mullins returned to Washington, she called legendary Georgetown track


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