Andy Dousis, one of the many fabulous people at my charter school, challenged me to do 22 push-ups every day for 22 days. Why? To raise awareness that every day in the United States, 22 former military personnel commit suicide. They may be veterans from the current wars in the Middle East, or older veterans from, say, the Vietnam War. But as Andy says, “Suicide is not the answer.”
So here I am on Day 1 of this challenge. One thing I learned: don’t do push-ups wearing cotton socks on a slick silk rug!
For more background on #22kill #22pushups, here’s a copy-and-paste from Wikipedia:
6,500 former military personnel killed themselves in 2012. More veterans succumbed to suicide than were killed in Iraq. In 2012, 177 active-duty soldiers committed suicide, conversely 176 soldiers were killed in combat. In other words, more soldiers committed suicide compared to being killed in action.
In 2013, the United States Department of Veterans Affairs released a study that covered suicides from 1999 to 2010, which showed that roughly 22 veterans were committing suicide per day, or one every 65 minutes.
This is horrible. Let’s hope that “raising awareness” is just the first step towards bettering the situation of our veterans.
See you tomorrow!
Tomorrow:
I doubled my effort and completed 44.
See you tomorrow!
Day 3:
Day 4:
Day 5: Pumping out 44 push-ups, not 22. Goal: reach 66 push-ups before the 22 days are up!
Day 6: Outdoors in the parking sun!
Day 7:
Very impressive!!!