Staying Fit
Courtesy Jon Lynch
A free three-day cruise for veterans? A free veterans technology education course? A free wedding dress? Yes, please!
These are among the more than 150 military and veterans benefits that Senior Airman Jon Lynch of the New Hampshire Air National Guard has become famous for featuring on the social media video site TikTok.
Using the handle @itsjonlynch, the 22-year-old has released viral videos that have gained him more than 161,000 followers and 1.3 million likes. One of his videos has been viewed 1.5 million times.
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Previously a skeptic of social media, Lynch first posted on TikTok — which he had regarded as “a dancing app” — in January last year after a college friend persuaded him to try it out.
A fuel specialist in the Air National Guard, Lynch’s full-time job is as a field quality assurance specialist with the multinational pharmaceutical company Bristol Myers Squibb.
But his principal passion is educating service members about a wide array of government and civilian opportunities and perks. Using the same handle on Instagram, which he joined only this year, he has over 60,000 followers.
This mission grew from his own experience. “One of the main reasons I joined the Air National Guard was the education benefits they offered me,” he told AARP Veteran Report. “The financial aspect from the college side was a really big deal for me.”
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He decided to post a video on financial aid options through the military and hasn’t looked back since. Lynch says anyone with something to say can take to social media to help others — it just takes one video to make a splash to gather legions of followers.
“I made a video about my drill weekend experience,” he said. “That video did pretty well. I started talking more about the military benefits because it was an audience who had questions about why I joined, and from there, they asked about other benefits.”
Lynch wants other service members and veterans to consider social media to share messages that matter to them.
“Social media gives you the biggest platform for the least amount of work — I started with zero followers, and look what happened over the course of a year or two. All you need is one story to get big, one veteran to say hey ‘know this,’ ‘learn about that,’ ‘this is my experience.’ ”
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