Author and motivational speaker Luke Murphy will be the guest speaker at the Bainbridge-Decatur County Chamber of Commerce Awards Banquet next Thursday, Feb. 4.

Murphy, an army staff sergeant who was catastrophically wounded in Iraq in 2005, travels the globe giving talks. Murphy explores the themes of adversity, leadership, motivation and teambuilding in his speeches.

His memoir, “Blasted by Adversity: the Making of a Wounded Warrior”, recounts Murphy’s deployment in Baghdad and the injury that changed his life—an explosion that instantly removed his right leg and blew his left leg in half. He refers to it as “a bad day on the job.”

Murphy has turned his story into a source of inspiration for wounded warriors all over the world. As a member of the National Campaign for the Wounded Warrior Project, he joins other soldiers to raise awareness of the success servicemen and women can achieve after injury.

Murphy’s speech will take place after the annual award ceremony, where awards will be handed out to local businesses, and the naming of the Pilot Club’s Woman of the Year and the Kiwanis Club’s Man of the Year.

The evening will conclude with Chamber Chairman Kevin Dowdy passing the gavel to 2016 Chairman Bo Jones.

Tickets for the banquet are $25 and are available for purchase at the Chamber of Commerce office at the Earle May Boat Basin. The deadline to purchase tickets is Monday, Feb. 1.

The banquet will be held at the Bainbridge Country Club and begin at 6 p.m.