Raising the Awareness of Veteran Suicides

Jim Osterman  is traveling the country from dropzone to dropzone trying to help spread the awareness of the crisis hitting our country: Veteran Suicide.

These men have sacrificed their all serving our country to come back and feel lost, alone and misunderstood to the point that they take their own lives. We as skydivers know what a camaraderie there is in the sport and how much love and acceptance is given to anyone that enters our community. Jim’s hope is to let Veteran’s know; even if they don’t want to jump, they are ALWAYS welcome at skydiving facilities to hang out, make friends and become a part of the lifestyle! Skydive Orange is so proud to have met Jim and is absolutely on board with this mission, we as a dropzone, have always and will continue to always welcome any Veterans to come out spend the day, then hang out after hours and get to know everyone!

What inspired Jim to take on such an admirable journey? Here’s his story:

“I have been touched by suicide more times then I want to think about. I have had two military friends take their own lives. Steve Luzynski and Frank Steiner IV have both taken from the rest of the world. Steve and I went to boot camp together and had so much in common we become instant friends. Frank I met through my wife Amber Osterman and her best friend Brandi. Frank was such an amazing person I wish I knew him for much longer than I had the opportunity.

So most of you know that I am on a motorcycle trip across the country. The trip has been and will continue to be in memory of Steve and Frank. What I am trying to accomplish as I go from DZ to DZ is I have been talking with the DZO at each DZ and asking if we as skydivers can do something for our Veterans. So what I have proposed is to each drop zone I have visited and will continue to propose is having a “Bring A Veteran To The Drop Zone” day. Not so they can jump from a plane but that would be fantastic if they so chose to. Looking to get these men and women out of their home out of the bar off the street what ever situation they might be in and bring them to the drop zone so they can see the camaraderie that we as skydivers share. This is something that might be missing in their lives and if we can bring it back to them it may just help that one man or woman see that people do care as a society.

We can all do more for our Veterans and if we all work together we can get the number of suicides each day to start dropping right now with the hopes of getting that number to zero one day. Thanks for reading my babble lets do our best to accomplish this for Steve, Frank and all Veterans that continue to struggle with living their life.”  – Jim