SUFFOLK COUNTY, N.Y. (New York Post) — It’s a boots-on-the-ground effort.
A Long Island lawmaker and Marine reservist plans to trek a whopping 66 miles across Suffolk County in just 26 hours to raise awareness for the country’s veterans’ suicide epidemic — and you’re invited.
“We’re losing more veterans by their own hand than when we were at war with Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia in the global war on terror over the past 20 years,” 45-year-old Chad Lennon, a Rocky Point Republican, told The Post.
“We don’t have twenty years — or two years, we don’t have two minutes.”
Lennon, who survived an IED blast while on active duty in Afghanistan 15 years ago, intends to leave at 9 a.m. Saturday from a local firehouse at the tip of the North Fork in Orient. He will walk straight to the Suffolk County government offices in Hauppauge and is hoping to arrive by 11 a.m. Sunday morning.
Once he makes it to Armed Forces Plaza, Lennon will raise a suicide awareness and remembrance flag that will accompany his walk and pay respects to Marine Cpl. Keith Anthony Miller, a Suffolk County soldier who took his own life 10 years ago.
“It’s in our communities, it’s constant. … And we have the largest population of veterans in New York here in Suffolk County,” said Lennon, a Purple Heart recipient, who emphasized that tragically 22 veterans take their own lives each day across the US.
The courageous, non-stop walk was deliberately scheduled ahead of Sept. 22 — National Military and Veterans Suicide Awareness Day.
Lennon said that for so many soldiers, the “Spartan mentality” of toughing out trauma is often an obstacle to overcome emotionally. He admitted his own struggles with accepting the concussive damage he sustained from the bomb that struck his vehicle.
