Every day in this country about twenty two U.S. veterans commit suicide.<\/p>\n
Many of these veterans suffer from PTSD and Survivor’s Guilt. Micah Herndon\u00a0 is one of those veterans. As a marine, Herndon was on patrol in Afghanistan when An I.E.D. exploded underneath his vehicle. Herndon survived, but three of his fellow comrades did not.<\/p>\n
Herndon decided to channel PTSD into something positive. This something positive is running. Herndon ran his third marathon last week. He was running well too. However, when he reached the 20 mile mark, his right leg gave out. When he hit mile mark 22, his left leg gave out. Like a solider, he continued on. With the finish line in sight, Herndon’s legs simply could not take another step. He hit his knees and began crawling. He finished that way, crawling across the finish line. It took him 33 minutes to complete the last mile.<\/p>\n
One might ask, why would one person go through this turmoil? Why not just quit? The answer for Herndon is simple. The answer is fellow Marines Mark Juarez and Matthew Ballard, and British journalist Rupert Hamer. He said their names over and over throughout the marathon. These are the men who died in his vehicle when that I.E.D. exploded.<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t lift my legs up anymore. They couldn\u2019t move forward,\u201d Herndon said. \u201cI wasn\u2019t just going to sit there and let people carry me and quit. Not through the toughest times of that race did quitting enter my mind. I started the race by myself; I was going to finish it by myself.\u201d Herndon knew that the pain he felt that day was nothing compared to the pain that his friends felt on their last day.<\/p>\n