![]() ![]() This challenge is a prime example of how people can come together and do epic things with the time they have left." "This life is absolutely worth living and you only get one shot. "Our thing is, whatever way, shape, or form you can, get help – don’t struggle alone," he says. Had it not been for my wife, family, and support network and surrounding myself with people who are flat out better than me, I wouldn’t even be talking to you right now."ĭeep in a trough of depression, Schick retreated into himself for the next two years and started relying on painkillers, so he knows exactly what veterans are facing. "This affected me greatly and I talked myself out of eating a bullet for over a year. "I was diagnosed with PTSD and traumatic brain injury, and those are the injuries that keep on giving if you don’t address them properly," he explains. Thus started a lengthy and painful 18-month process of 46 operations and 23 blood transfusions for Schick, but it was the mental effect of the incident and its aftermath that was of more long-term concern. His lungs collapsed, he lost his right leg below the knee ("I didn’t lose it, I know where it went, but I don’t have it anymore," he notes wryly), suffered multiple compound fractures in his left leg with skin loss, ligament loss, and bone loss multiple compound fractures in his left arm, losing five inches off one of the bones and part of his left hand he broke every one of his ribs. He never lost consciousness or went into shock, and so he remembers everything. ![]() The tank he was traveling in hit a land mine. As the US Marine Corps website describes, the front tire hit the improvised explosive device and Schick was blown 30 feet through the top of the vehicle. He led his team on a patrol one morning in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Iraq that came to be known as the Sunni Triangle, west of Baghdad. Schick was part of 1 st Battalion, 23 rd Marines, which was deployed to Iraq in 2004. ![]() Jacob Schick and his family, who helped him deal with PTSD It’s a societal issue, not a warrior issue." It gives people a simple avenue to help our fight to raise awareness of the fact we lose 22 warriors on average every day to suicide, which is absolutely unacceptable."Īs Schick, who is married with two young sons aged five and a half and a month and a half, points out: "Post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury don’t just affect the warrior community. It’s about fighting for the greater good, and that’s what this does. "It’s not about 22Kill and our nonprofit. "We’re honored and humbled this has taken the internet by storm," said Schick. This week I was lucky enough to be able to speak to #22Kill’s executive director Corporal Jacob Schick (retired), a third-generation marine and wounded warrior himself, about the mission and impact of the #22PushupChallenge. The challenge was instigated by a nonprofit called #22Kill, a global movement set up by an organization called Honor Courage Commitment that aims to elicit a total of 22 million push-ups to raise awareness around the issue. ![]() The challenge has been a slow burner but has really come to the public eye this August, with celebrities such as Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, Chris Pratt, Anna Faris, Kevin Hart and many others getting involved, numerous serving soldiers, law enforcement officers, and firefighters, as well as everyday blue- and white-collar workers. I make no apology for returning to the topic of the #22PushupChallenge and the fight to raise awareness of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and the fact more than 20 U.S. ![]()
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