Today was a normal day like any other for David Strittmather.
“Normally it’s up in the morning and off to work doing software development,” Strittmather said.
Except for the fact that he's going to drop and give 22...22 push ups that is.
“It started out just in the living room for the first day…and then it just kind of took off from there.”
The son of a veteran is doing push-ups for 22 days to raise awareness about veterans who commit suicide. Wednesday was day 12.
“An average of 22 veterans commit suicide a day. What matters is one suicide is one too many so we’re just trying to bring some awareness to that issue.”
And he's been having some fun with it, popping up at random places around Northeast Ohio like at the USS COD Submarine on Wednesday.
“I've done push ups at the Lakeview Park in Lorain, Germans Villa, on the bridge over Vermilion River. When you have a backdrop I thought more people would pay attention to it.”
And he's not alone. The idea has been catching on to social media.
“The figures show that veterans commit suicide at two times the regular population and so it’s a big problem for us,” said Dr. Edgardo Padin, Chief Psychologist at the Louis Stokes VA Medical Center. He explained that whether they’ve been deployed or not, many veterans come home and often feel isolated.
"Their whole persona, who they are, what it means to be a human being has been tied up now in being in the military and being in combat, and now they come back into civilian life and they feel very much alone.”
It’s those vets and their loved ones that David said he reflected on with every push up he completed.
“You never know who’s been touched by it. Yeah, when I do those 22, that does enter my mind, ya know how many families, brothers, sisters, moms and dads are affected by someone taking their life.”
After his 22 days have been completed, David told me he plans on challenging several of his friends to do the same thing and hopes the message continues to spread.
