Drama college students at Zama Center Excessive Faculty conduct a efficiency throughout an meeting for Purple Ribbon Week inside the varsity’s auditorium at Camp Zama, Japan, Nov. 3, 2022. Celebrated yearly, Purple Ribbon Week is the nation’s largest and longest-running drug-use prevention marketing campaign that has reached hundreds of thousands of individuals around the globe, in line with the Nationwide Household Partnership. (Photograph Credit score: Sean Kimmons)
Zama Center Excessive Faculty college students attend an meeting for Purple Ribbon Week inside the varsity’s auditorium at Camp Zama, Japan, Nov. 3, 2022. Celebrated yearly, Purple Ribbon Week is the nation’s largest and longest-running drug-use prevention marketing campaign that has reached hundreds of thousands of individuals around the globe, in line with the Nationwide Household Partnership. (Photograph Credit score: Sean Kimmons)
Workers Sgt. Benigno Nunez, assigned to the 88th Navy Police Battalion, shares his private experiences of witnessing the lethal penalties of medication and extreme alcohol use with college students throughout a Purple Ribbon Week meeting contained in the Zama Center Excessive Faculty auditorium at Camp Zama, Japan, Nov. 3, 2022. (Photograph Credit score: Sean Kimmons)
CAMP ZAMA, Japan – Whereas rising up in Lengthy Island, New York, Benigno Nunez repeatedly witnessed the lethal penalties of medication and extreme alcohol use.
Nunez, now a employees sergeant assigned to the 88th Navy Police Battalion, shared his story with Zama Center Excessive Faculty college students Thursday throughout a Purple Ribbon Week meeting.
His father’s alcohol use, he started to inform the scholars, led to his dad and mom being divorced and finally his father’s demise from cirrhosis of the liver. Nunez’s mates additionally misplaced family members, together with his buddy’s older brother who collapsed and died in Nunez’s entrance yard after the brother was stabbed by a drug vendor.
Years later, Nunez stated, one other buddy of his turned to alcohol after he and his girlfriend ended their relationship.
“He determined that ingesting was the way in which out to alleviate his ache,” Nunez stated, including his buddy was then arrested twice for driving whereas intoxicated. “Sadly, he thought his life was accomplished and he determined to take his personal life, due to that.”
Whereas deeply private to share with an viewers, Nunez, who serves as a army police investigator and desk sergeant, stated he hoped the real-life tragedies would assist forestall college students from enduring comparable painful experiences.
“Regardless that they did not occur to me, it impacts individuals,” he stated of the incidents. “You guys have your [whole] life forward you. Do not let medicine and alcohol get the higher of you, as a result of the harm is immeasurable.”
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Col. Christopher L. Tomlinson, commander of U.S. Military Garrison Japan, speaks with college students throughout a Purple Ribbon Week meeting contained in the Zama Center Excessive Faculty auditorium at Camp Zama, Japan, Nov. 3, 2022. Celebrated yearly, Purple Ribbon Week is the nation’s largest and longest-running drug-use prevention marketing campaign that has reached hundreds of thousands of individuals around the globe, in line with the Nationwide Household Partnership. (Photograph Credit score: Sean Kimmons)
Col. Christopher L. Tomlinson, commander of U.S. Military Garrison Japan, speaks with college students throughout a Purple Ribbon Week meeting contained in the Zama Center Excessive Faculty auditorium at Camp Zama, Japan, Nov. 3, 2022. Celebrated yearly, Purple Ribbon Week is the nation’s largest and longest-running drug-use prevention marketing campaign that has reached hundreds of thousands of individuals around the globe, in line with the Nationwide Household Partnership. (Photograph Credit score: Sean Kimmons)
Led by college students within the Nationwide Junior Honor Society, the varsity’s Purple Ribbon Week additionally had festivities every day to have a good time being drug free. A few of them allowed college students to decorate in costumes, mismatched socks, pajamas, hats and the colour pink to assist get them into the spirit of the week.
Throughout Thursday’s meeting within the faculty auditorium, college students performed performances and movies of public service bulletins have been proven to discourage alcohol and drug use.
Nunez additionally spoke to the scholars together with Col. Christopher L. Tomlinson, commander of U.S. Military Garrison Japan.
“Purple Ribbon Week is a perfect approach for individuals and communities to return collectively and take a stand towards medicine,” Tomlinson stated. “It’s a time to point out your private dedication to a drug-free life-style.”
Celebrated yearly, Purple Ribbon Week is the nation’s largest and longest-running drug-use prevention marketing campaign that has reached hundreds of thousands of individuals around the globe, in line with the Nationwide Household Partnership.
The marketing campaign started in 1985 following the homicide of Enrique “Kiki” Camarena, a Drug Enforcement Administration agent who was tortured and killed by drug traffickers in Mexico earlier that yr. The demise sparked outrage amongst dad and mom and youth throughout the nation who started to put on pink ribbons to lift consciousness of the destruction attributable to medicine in America, in line with the NFP.
“This yr’s theme for Purple Ribbon Week is ‘have a good time life … dwell drug free,’” Tomlinson stated. “By celebrating life and dwelling drug free, you might be caring for crucial particular person in your life and that’s you.”