Have you heard of this race before? Most likely not, since July 19th was the first annual “Run To Remember.” I wouldn’t have known about it, except MSgt. Jonathan White and his son ran the half marathon. His wife, daughter and other son ran the 5K. To say it was a hard run would be putting it mildly. Jonathan described it this way.
“Dirt, mud, rocks, and HILLS. Lots of them. 300 meter inclines. Anyway, Josh and I ran together. 13.1 miles 2:12. Josh won 1st place for 15-19 year old males. Peg, Kayla, Benjamin ran the 5K.
All were victorious today."
There were some nasty inclines, and it was a cross country run through the dirt and rocks. The 5K run was no cake walk either!
Anything less would have surprised me when I found out the race was to honor those members of the 1st Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne). This was not a typical run along the city streets. I found this graph showing the ups and downs (inclines) of the race.
I was able to get in contact with CH (Cpt) Waldrop, and realized that he was the man, the inspiration behind the organization of this annual event. The chaplain explained it to me this way.
“Over the years the 1st Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) has honored its past by holding individual memorials for each of our fallen heroes years after their death.
Over the course of the last two years our operational tempo has increased and we are now a battalion size element engaged in combat and training on three continents. As the difficulty in honoring our fallen heroes increased so did my resolve that we should not forsake the annual tributes to our brothers.
So I began exploring ways that could appropriately honor our soldiers and make it a capstone event. Also, I wanted to open the event up to our community so I sought out the help of our Fitness Coordinator for USAG Stuttgart.
Together, we created a program that would both benefit the community and allow the 1-10 SFG (A) Family Readiness Group to raise funds for the Special Operation Warrior Foundation. Both the race and the fundraiser, while separate events, were extremely successful.”
Each participant was given a race shirt with the names of the fallen members on the front of it. If a runner wanted to pay tribute to a specific fallen colleague they could have that name placed on the back of this shirt. The Chaplain introduced the lady that started the runners off. Her husband had died in
I asked Jonathan why he chose this particular race.
“My friends names were on the shirts. They didn't make it home. I ran for them. My family ran for them. It was their day. They were hard warriors and this was a hard race. Definitely befitting of them.”
Copyright 2008 MsMarti. All rights reserved.
Stumble It!
