‘I got your six’: Student veterans to host walk focusing on suicide awareness

The Student Veterans of America (SVA)-UTRGV chapter and peer support group will host a Suicide Awareness: 22 Minute Walk & Tabling from noon to 1:30 p.m. Feb. 22 on the Brownsville and Edinburg campuses.

From noon to 12:20 p.m., there will be a briefing on suicide awareness. At 12:22 p.m., the 22-minute walk will begin at the flagpole on the Edinburg campus and on the north side of Cavalry Hall on the Brownsville campus.

The walk will be followed by the reading of a poem and closing remarks. To conclude the event, there will be a tabling and a 22-pushup challenge from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. in the University Center on the Edinburg campus and common area in Cavalry Hall on the Brownsville campus. 

The Collegiate Recovery Center, a program that offers hope and support to help lead students to achieve their recovery goals, will participate in the tabling, along with Student Accessibility Services, VA Valley Coastal Bend Health Care System-Suicide Prevention Program, a suicide prevention team from Veterans Affairs, the McAllen Vet Center, Cameron and Hidalgo counties Veterans Service Offices and representatives from the Texas Veterans Commission.

A virtual 22-minute mental health meditation will take place via Zoom with Leah Ellis, supervising clinical therapist at the UTRGV Counseling Center.

Elda Arriaga, director of the Military and Veterans Success Center, said the center is a one-stop-shop to show support in utilizing Veterans Affairs benefits.

“The center assists students in certifying education benefits, advocating for services, developing projects to unite the university with our local community, providing counseling services specifically for veterans and promoting student involvement through the Student Veterans of America National Organization,” according to its website.

Arriaga said the peer support group is a therapeutic forum for students, or anyone in the military community, to discuss a variety of topics, from academic, clinical and financial support to food referral services.

Kristopher Ezell, president of the SVA and a work-study at the Military and Veterans Success Center, said the mission of the SVA is to help student veterans throughout their school experience, provide resources and find employment after graduation.

Arriaga said this will be the first time the center will host a 22-minute walk.

Richard Clayton, a clinical therapist at the UTRGV Counseling Center and peer facilitator for the Military and Veterans Success Center, said the event evolved out of the peer group.

“The main purpose of it is, again, to bring awareness,” Clayton said. “We lose an average of 22 veterans per day, which is almost twice the national average. So we’re a high-risk population.”

He said one of the misconceptions about suicide is if somebody asks or talk about suicide, it puts that thought in somebody’s mind, and that is not true.

“It’s not gonna provoke anybody to go and do self-harm, or die by suicide or initiate a plan,” Clayton said. “It actually gives comfort to people when you actually start talking to someone who is contemplating suicide.

“It brings comfort to them. It’s like, normalizes my feelings. Yes, they’re real and let’s talk about them. It really is OK. It’s not a sign of weakness. It’s a sign of strength to say, ‘Hey, I need help.’ That’s a sign of strength. We want to show that we’re here. We’re veterans, you know, we’re not, we’re not someone else. … We’re personally invested in this community.”

He encourages the campus community to attend the event.

“We want the whole student body and the faculty and staff that are invited to be our allies, to understand veterans and that we might have assets, but we have struggles, too,” Clayton said.