United States Marine Corps veteran Jimmy Mac bases most of his decisions around the number 22, which is the average number of veterans that commit suicide daily, according to a 2012 report from the United States Department of Veterans Affairs.

As part of the non-profit organization 22Kill, he and others are taking a stand against that statistic.

“We live the number 22 every day,” said Mac, program director of 22Kill.

The organization uses a simple exercise — pushups — to educate the American people about veteran suicide through a social media campaign. The task is to do 22 pushups every day for 22 days while maintaining a social media presence, such as posting videos, during the challenge.

“The 22 veterans a day are our brothers and sisters,” Mac said. “They’re someone else’s sons, daughters, husbands, wives, parents. It’s our duty to live for the 22 that are no longer here to live for themselves.”

The pushup challenge follows a similar format to other viral social media campaigns, such as the “ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.” In the summer of 2014, social media imploded with more than 17 million videos of people pouring ice water on themselves in an effort to raise awareness for Lou Gehrig’s Disease research, according to the ALS Association website.

The campaign has caught the attention of students and officials at Syracuse University. Since Chancellor Kent Syverud was inaugurated two years ago, SU has made veterans affairs a top priority. And for military students at SU, the 22Kill pushup challenge hits home.

U.S. Army Capt. Wandlyn Robinson, who is a masters student in the Defense Comptrollership Program in SU’s Martin J. Whitman School of Management, first became aware of the pushup campaign on Facebook when she saw two of her friends posting videos about it.

“It’s definitely an issue we don’t think about every day, but when you see something like that on Facebook, it hits home,” Robinson said.

Robinson said she has yet to be nominated for the pushup challenge, but does pushups anyway as part of her morning routine. She said she continues to share her friends’ pushup videos on Facebook.

But often, she added, service members need more assistance when they come back from deployment. A lack of that help, she said, is one of the reasons why mental illness develops when military members return to the U.S. from deployment.

Jeff Curtin, a student in the Military Visual Journalism program in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, recently completed the pushup challenge after being nominated by his brother. Curtin has been on active duty in the U.S. Air Force since 2005.

It’s not difficult for Curtin to do 22 pushups, he said, but that’s not the point of the challenge.

“The point was not to say, ‘Hey, look how great I am,’” Curtin said. “The point was to help people to understand that if you commit to something, you can do this challenge and it’s going to help others to see how passionate you are about it and that it is a big deal.”

Veteran suicide should also be an issue for the general population, he said, because non-military civilians should be able to see the signs that something is not right when a veteran is fighting mental illness.

Curtin said people should reach out and spend more time with that person “to make them feel, you know, more human.”

Erik Marberger, a freshman dual major in Whitman and Newhouse, is not a member of the military, but took part in the challenge because he said he wanted to raise awareness about the issue to other students.

“The campus should be more aware of this issue,” Marberger said. “Because many people do not realize how hard some veterans have it when they come home from protecting our country in foreign lands.”

The challenge is important to Marberger, he said, because his grandfather fought in the Korean War. But he said he is currently doing the challenge to represent all of the U.S. military.

“Also, I just like to do pushups,” he added.

22Kill also sponsors a 22-kilometer hike and a “Battle Buddy Program.” Anyone can sign up to be a “Battle Buddy” and serve as a peer mentor to a veteran who may simply want to talk.

“It takes the entire tribe to have an enriched village,” Mac said. “We are humbled for the opportunity to reach the students of Syracuse University.”

Published on May 1, 2016 at 9:56 pm

Contact Kenneth: kmintz@syr.edu