Guardsman battles health and self to save his fellow Soldiers

Photo By Cody Muzio | Sgt. 1st Class Joseph Garland does burpees in the 1-117th Field Artillery Battalion drill hall. Garland had challenged himself to do 2,000 burpees in the month of April to raise awareness for suicide prevention, but when he developed severe health complications, his fight through the pain began to mirror the internal fights of the many service members whose lives have been lost to suicide. Garland said without the help and encouragement of his fellow Soldiers, he may not have succeeded.  

ANDALUSIA, AL, UNITED STATES

05.24.2021

Story by Spc. Cody Muzio 

Joint Force Headquarters - Alabama National Guard

Sgt. 1st Class Joseph Garland was no stranger to fighting. He was a Soldier and Soldiers are trained to fight. Soldiers fight to win.
But this time, he didn't want to. He wanted to stop fighting. He wanted to lose.
The fighting hurt.
The only thing that kept him fighting was his memory. Not memory of his training, but the memory of his comrades. Teammates, friends, and brothers who had stopped fighting. Who couldn't fight anymore. Who had lost their fights.
Garland's fight was within himself, a battle to keep going when everything hurt and all he wanted to do was quit. In this moment, he fought against physical pain to reach a fitness milestone.
Still, with every drop, pushup, and jump of the 2,000 burpees he fought to complete, he said he felt only a fraction of the pain his friends had felt... before they decided to take their own lives.
"I have lost several Soldiers close to me over the years," he said, "who were dealing with things I knew nothing about until after the fact. My hope with this was just that maybe someone else who's hurting might see this and think 'he didn't give up, he didn't stop.' If I can be that example to someone and let them know there's people out there who care... that's everything."
Garland, a personnel NCO with the 1-117th Field Artillery Battalion, had challenged himself to complete 2,000 burpees during April to raise awareness of veteran and service member suicide. He saw the challenge promoted online and said the task sounded daunting at first. But, he thought, he could easily handle approximately 66 burpees per day, which would see him finish right on time.
"And I was more or less on track for a while," he said, "I'd miss a few and then catch up on them the next day for a bit, but I was doing OK until all of a sudden I started really, really hurting.
"Turns out, I had kidney stones."
Garland's schedule fell further and further behind as he dealt with the pain, treatment, and recovery. On April 19, he walked into his office, where he had hung a poster-sized calendar to track his daily burpee progress.
He had only completed 651 burpees so far. To meet his goal, he'd need to get more than twice that many in almost half the time. The easy answer was to call it quits.
"I'm not going to say it didn't cross my mind to give up," he said.
"It did. That was the obvious choice. But…" he paused. "I thought about the ones I've lost. And if they were still here today, I'd have liked to tell them not to give up."
So Garland continued the challenge, knowing it would be an uphill battle. Over the next few days, he logged more than 900 more burpees before the physical toll became too much and his body demanded a rest.
Three days slipped by as aches and pains kept him from continuing the routine.
"So, then it was the last day of the month," he said, "and I went in to work and Chief Henderson told me I was going to finish. I had 389 left, but with his encouragement, we ended up doing 400 that morning."
Seeing that his friend needed help to carry on, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Chad Henderson took Garland to the 1-117th's drill hall, and the two began to do burpees together.
Through pain, nausea, dizziness, they pressed on. It took almost an hour, but Garland accomplished the mission and a little extra to spare.
"It was rough," Garland said, "but I had Chief Henderson there and he did them with me. If he hadn't been there, I probably wouldn't have made it."
Henderson said he was inspired by seeing Garland push through so much pain after the kidney stones, and he didn't want to see him fail so close to the goal.
"When he came in that day, I knew about his struggles during the month and asked how many he had left," he said. "I expected him to say something like he didn't know or he never picked it back up after leaving the hospital, but I was shocked when he gave me an exact number and I knew I needed to help him see it through. It clearly meant a lot to him and he has my full respect."
Henderson said he also identified with Garland's mission and knew he could play a part in raising awareness. If the right people had been there to help, he said, some tragedies may have been avoided.
"Just like anything else you might have going on, all I saw was a Soldier struggling," he said, "a Soldier who might need encouragement. So I said 'let's do this together.'"
Garland said he didn't want to tell people about his burpee challenge while he was doing it because he doesn't like attention. Only a few close friends, like Henderson, knew what was going on.
"I definitely relied on their encouragement," he said, "and they'd stop by every day to ask how it was going and tell me to keep it up."
But as he completed the physical and emotional ordeal of 400 consecutive burpees to finish the task, he said he started to realize that it could be a good example.
"The Guard, to me, is family," he said, "and I care about every Soldier whether I know them personally or not. I want them to know they can talk to me, and I won't quit on them.
"This is Mental Health Awareness Month and mental health is very, very important in our line of work," he continued. "Things can start small and quickly lead to suicidal thoughts, and just like other Soldiers are there for me, we have to be there for each other. You can also work with someone every day of the week and not know what's going on behind closed doors. Identifying struggles isn't always easy. But they have to know we care about them."
Henderson said it was a vital self-reminder. If he had not known his Soldier well, he could have missed his chance to help, and Garland may have lost his battle.
"We, as leaders, have to be aware of what our Soldiers are doing, just like how I happened to be aware of what [Garland] was doing," he said. "He took on this challenge, just like we all take on weights and responsibilities every day, and you have to be asking those questions of 'how is it going, where are you at, how can I help' or you're going to miss it.
"These people you stand shoulder to shoulder with every day—this is where suicide prevention happens," he continued.
"It doesn't happen at a professional level, it happens at a personal level. You can't order someone not to take their life. You have to know them, be with them, and be engaged with them wherever they are. Let them know their fight matters and they aren't fighting alone."

May is nationally observed as Mental Health Awareness Month. If you or are loved one is struggling with mental health or suicidal thoughts, please speak with a friend or loved one, or get free, confidential, 24/7 help from a trained professional through the Military Crisis Line. In the United States, call 800-273-8255 or access online chat at www.veteranscrisisline.net or by texting 838255.

• Date Taken: 05.24.2021
• Date Posted: 05.25.2021 15:02
• Story ID: 397365
• Location: ANDALUSIA, AL, US