♪ Rock Chalk Chant ♪
My name is Nathan Dehnke and I'm a
political science graduate student at
the University of Kansas.
I was in the United States Army from
September of 2004 until October of 2008.
I was wounded in action in Iraq near Baghdad
in June of 2007 and it was an improvised
explosive device that resulted in my injuries,
that caused my injuries.
(Professor lecturing)
I'm significantly older than everybody else
and getting back used to the college lifestyle,
it took some time for adjustment.
Finding myself,
having to organize my own time again.
But, overall, it wasn't as bad a transition
because the students that were in
my classes, the teachers, the advisors,
other administration officials here at KU
made it very easy.
They were open-minded to things.
Sometimes in the military people like to
think "oh man you're going back to a college
campus, it's going to be people who are just
going to hate you because you were in the
military" and so on and so forth and
it's not necessarily that way,
at all, in my experience.
Whether or not they agree
with what's going on in Iraq or Afghanistan
or whether or not they agree
with the policies of the army or
anything like that, they've taken a very
open-minded perspective, at least,
with regards to veterans.
My name is Kortney Clemons.
I'm a grad student in the School of Education.
I was in the army from 2001 to 2006.
I was injured February 2005 in Baghdad
and I was injured while carrying a
injured service member to the Blackhawk.
An IED exploded next to me and in result I
lost my right leg above the knee and we lost
three service members on that day.
(Professor lecturing)
My teachers have been really good.
One of them that stands out is Miss Suzanne Rice.
She's been, you know,
just real enthusiastic every day in class.
She's always like, "look, if you have a
problem with anything, you know, don't
hesitate to call or come by."
The learning environment in class is
real good, you know, no one is afraid
to ask the wrong question.
You know, it's helped me deal with school
here on another level because I've never,
you know, been in a masters program before
so I had a lot of anxiety coming into this.
I really enjoy learning.
I really feel like when I'm not learning
I'm kind of like falling behind.
I'm currently training with the KU track
team for the Paralympic World Championships
in January 2011 in New Zealand.
In my events I will be doing the 100 meters,
200 meters, and the long jump.
It's been awesome getting a chance to get
back to the team environment.
A lot of times about my injury being so
physical, you can see it, it inspires people
without even saying a word.
And therefore, the people that do have the
nerve to say something or ask, you know,
okay what happened?
At that time I get a chance
to share a story with them.
Some of my life, I kind of try to use it as
a tool to help others and if I'm able to
do that, it would be awesome.
There is a very strong network set up
through Fort Leavenworth, set up through KU,
on a kind of professional basis.
Just being around people who understand,
being around other folks who you can just,
if you want to share, great;
if not, not a big deal.
Nathan and Kortney are two of our
Wounded Warriors out here at KU.
They are here to get an MA degree, masters
degree, the intent is to take individuals
who have lost a career as a function of
being wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan to
retrain them, give them new skills, and then
give them back to the army and then they can
still have a full career.