John Rudden ’18
With our US veterans coming home from foreign lands and distant battlefields, veterans suicide is becoming a severe problem. The numbers have been rising quickly each year and coming home from the war has become more of a challenge than the ones they faced in combat. In 2016, an average of 22 veterans commit suicide every day. This is completely unacceptable. Programs for are put in place for returning service members struggling with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder along with other various mental health disorders. But sadly, these prevention programs are just not enough.
Awareness is being spread with the 22 day 22 push up challenge. For 22 days, a person must do 22 pushups and nominate someone else to accept the challenge each day. Some challengers are taking this to social media by outlining their challenge and nominations. Through this phenomenon, veterans suicide awareness will continue to spread rapidly. Even our own Mr. Carmiche has posted a video about the challenge.
Mr. Carmiche is passionate for this cause as someone who marches in the “Sons of American Legion” Post 390, representing US veterans in Denville. Though he does not have any military experience he was nominated for the challenge by a friend in his post. Mr. Carmiche has seen the effects of PTSD and other military related health injuries; his heart goes out. When asked about the challenge and MLHS, he “would like more students to get involved and [suicide] awareness needs to be raised.”
Thousands of others have posted videos of themselves on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Vine. You should too! Post a video of yourself doing 22 pushups with the following caption.
DAY 22…. Mission Accomplished…
Thank You to all of our Veterans!
“22 push-ups a day for 22 days to raise awareness for combat veterans.”
A study published in 2012 suggested that an average of 22 veterans kill themselves every day. While that conclusion on those numbers is controversial, many agree that this is a significant situation. This is a small way to raise awareness for that issue in the U.S. Push-ups alone won’t solve the problem, but this challenge is designed to raise awareness for a very real problem.
The rules are simple: * Once you are nominated your 22 days start the following day. * Every day you record yourself doing 22 push-ups. Try your best to reach 22. If that means doing assisted (from your knees) push-ups or that you have to stop and take a break that’s fine but try to get them all done in one video.
*Every day, you must nominate a different person. Try to choose people you think will want to do this and/or have the ability to do it.
*And finally, have fun with this. This is a simple and fun way to get the word out about a matter that more people need to be aware about. These brave men and women put their lives on the line to protect our freedoms, it would be amazing to help this cause by bringing awareness to our local communities.”
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