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Yet again, the Elks Riders, a motorcycle group affiliated with the Franklin Elks lodge has raised and donated funds for 22 Mohawks, a regional group that works to prevent suicide among veterans, a scourge that far outnumbers combat deaths in the modern US military. This time, the total was $2200.
The presentation was made by the Elks Riders, with president Rich Gately, at the center, presenting to Dave and Stacey from 22 Mohawks at the right, above.
Dave, a 16-year Army veteran spoke to the mission of the organization that he founded:
"Since the start of the global war on terror on September 11 2001, there's been roughly 7100 combat related deaths. And in that same timeframe there have been over 125,000 veteran suicides. When we go overseas and deploy, we assume that risk ,we know that we could die or we could lose a limb or something tragic. When we come home, we think we're safe. But a lot of us aren't. A lot of us have mental health issues. You know, PTSD, and emotional stuff that we have to deal with, which leads some of us down a bad path, suicide.
"Our mission is to prevent veteran suicide. And it's not to prevent death, it's actually to enhance people's lives, veterans lives. Through today we've given 99 dogs and hope to reach 100 by the end of the year.
"We think it'd be pretty cool milestone. A recent study done by the Michigan National Guard found that the organizations that give dogs to veterans, that there's a 0% suicide rate. So every veteran that we've given a dog to is still alive, which is awesome. More importantly, out of those veterans that have received dogs from us. A few of them have actually called us while they were in the midst of a crisis, we were able to get them to the VAs into the emergency room. So, there wasn't a tragic event. So the dog is a way for them to reconnect with us to help prevent them from you know, having suicide."
The Elk Riders were enthusiastic in their support and said they would continue to raise funds for the organization.