Last Friday evening, at a gym in central Vermont, Marine veteran Jason Mosel began his quest to break the world record for the most burpees in a 12-hour period.
For Mosel, who survived a suicide attempt after his military service, the record attempt was a culmination of sorts to a dramatic life turnaround. And the Corinth resident is trying to use his own story to bring awareness to veteran suicide.
A little before 6 p.m. on a nasty-weather Friday at a Snap Fitness franchise in Berlin, Mosel was a tattooed bundle of nervous energy.
“I just want to thank everybody for coming today, braving the weather out there,” Mosel told the family members, friends and certified personal trainers on hand to witness the attempt. “Mother Nature trying to hold us down - that ain’t happening. We got a storm brewing in here tonight. It’s going to be 12 hours of pure burpee madness.”
Mosel explained the Guinness record ground rules to the small crowd that’d gathered to witness the feat.
To complete a burpee, you start flat on the ground, face down and arms outstretched. Then, a push up. Then, rise to standing a position. Then jump in the air. And then, lie back down and start all over again.
WATCH — GIF of Mosel doing burpees:
Mosel will have to do this 4,557 times in 12 hours - about once every 9 seconds - to break the existing record.
So he queued up the heavy metal playlist on his iPhone, and the burpee madness began.
A Marine’s Story
Mosel lives in a log cabin house in Corinth, with his wife, Amber, and a goofy Great Dane, named Gomez.
Mosel grew up in Waterbury, Conn. But the couple moved to rural Vermont shortly after he was honorably discharged from the Marines, in 2007, mainly because he wanted to be in a quiet place without many people.
Mosel is 33 now, and still sports a tight military buzz cut. He enlisted when he was just 16 years old, a few weeks after 9/11.
“I tell people that was our Pearl Harbor,” Mosel said during an interview at his home recently. “And everybody was really fired up to get enlisted and get over there and defend freedom.”
By 2004, Mosel was in Ar Ramadi Iraq, with a Marine battalion that would lose 34 members during its seven-month deployment.
“You think it’s going to be just like a video game,” Mosel said. “But I’ll tell you the thing that all of a sudden really changes it is that when you take a life or you see a life taken.”
Mosel left Iraq in 2004. But he said the things he saw and did there would not leave him. There were night terrors, and severe depression. And the pills prescribed by military psychiatrists only seemed to make things worse.
“Then one night, in 2005, I said, 'The hell with this,' and took all my pills and chugged it down with some alcohol and said, 'That’s it - I’m done. I’m out,'” Mosel said.
The suicide attempt happened when Mosel was still in the Marines, on a deployment to Okinawa, Japan.
He was locked in a military psych ward on the base in Okinawa, but eventually summoned the wits to make it through his four-year military commitment to the Marines.
As recently as 2013, however, Mosel said he was drinking heavily, and losing a battle against what he calls, “the demon.”
Until he was channel surfing one day.
“We’ve probably have all seen those infomercials on TV for the “Insanity” with Sean T,” Mosel said.
Infomercials fitness videos were ubiquitous at the time. And Mosel decided to order one.
He completed the 60-day Insanity challenge, and something sparked inside him. Soon, he signed up for a 10-mile obstacle course. Then came grueling daily workouts at home, to prepare for ultramarathons and multi-day endurance events.
And in those moments of exhaustion, Mosel says he came to terms with the person that war had made him.
“This is who you are. Your time in Iraq, your depression, your night terrors, your everything - this is you, and so how do you face it?” Mosel said. “How do you become mentally stronger than that demon that’s fighting you?”
The Record Attempt
Back at the gym, where Mosel is trying to break the world record, it’s 4 a.m. And he’s still rising, jumping, dropping. Rising, jumping, dropping.
But 10 hours into the attempt, it’s become evident that Mosel will not be breaking any records.
He wants to keep at it anyway, wants to go the full 12 hours. Because while Mosel doesn’t always win, he’s not the kind of guy to give up either. Not anymore anyway.
The small crowd that’s been here since last night is bleary eyed but buzzing.
They include the certified personal trainers who have been counting his burpees, and confirming they meet Guinness's standards, and friends and family who traveled from as far away as Connecticut to watch the attempt.
They all count down the final seconds to the 12-hour cutoff, and tally the final burpee - number 3,194.
And then, a woman named Valerie Pallotta walks over to the exhausted former Marine, panting on the floor.
Pallotta’s son, Josh, is a former Vermont National Guardsman who died by suicide in 2014, after a deployment to Afghanistan. Pallotta’s here because Mosel is using this record attempt to raise money for a suicide-prevention organization named in Josh Pallotta’s honor.
“This is just an amazing feat. And this man right here - because you’re still here, with us - is what the mission of the Josh Pallotta Fund is all about,” Pallotta said.
The world record didn’t matter much to Pallotta. What mattered, she said, is why Mosel wanted to break it.
“And losing Josh, my heart is shattered into pieces,” Pallotta said. “And you’ve helped put one of those shattered pieces back in my heart.”
Then she gave him a hug.
Here are some resources, if you or someone you know is considering suicide:
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
- Veterans Crisis Line & Military Crisis Line: 1-800-273-8255, Press 1
- Crisis Text Line: 741-741
- Vermont Suicide Prevention Center: http://vtspc.org/
- In emergency situations, call 911.
