9/11 tribute 5K run a way for thousands to honor the fallen
Half an hour after most of the other runners passed by, Russ Hawkins slumped across the finish line at Ellington Field on Saturday, tore off his 90-pound blast suit and gasped for breath.
“That finish line looked better than the Houston Chevron Marathon’s any day,” the Metro Police bomb squad officer and veteran marathoner said, sweat dripping down the 48-year-old’s shaved head.
He had just spent nearly an hour with eight other bomb techs from local agencies trudging through the 9/11 Heroes Run 5K in full gear. They were among thousands who gathered in Southeast Houston on an especially soupy Saturday morning to run in the 9/11 Heroes Run 5K + 1M to remember the victims of the Sept. 11 terror attacks that killed 2,996 people and injured more than 6,000 others.
The attack was the deadliest on American soil since Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbor.
The 9/11 attacks prompted the U.S. to invade both Iraq and Afghanistan. Approximately 7,000 American servicemen and women have died in those conflicts.
Sponsored by the Travis Manion Foundation, the race honors those service members, as well as the first responders and civilians who died on 9/11.
“All those men and women who have served and sacrificed for us, they’re the reason we’re out here today,” said Ryan Manion, whose brother, Travis, was killed in 2007 in Fallujah as he tried to help two wounded comrades.
The family held the first 5K in 2008 to preserve his legacy. ‘Constant reminder’
What began as a small race in Doylestown, Pa., has grown to dozens of races across the globe, including in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guam, Italy, England and on a ship in the Persian Gulf.
“Let us make sure we as a country inform our next generation about Sept. 11,” she urged the crowd of runners shortly before the race began as honor guards from the Texas Department of Public Safety, the Houston Police Department, the Harris County Sheriff’s Office and several other agencies stood at attention.
Police officers, firefighters and military service members at the race recalled the attacks, stressing the need for vigilance to prevent future, similar incidents.
Seabrook Police officer Michael Dyer, 29, was in high school on his way to class when the planes hit. Houston Police officer Adam Ho, 31, was in English class.
“The whole class stopped talking,” he said. “It was silent.”
Andy Chung, 33, was a student at West Point when the World Trade Center fell.
Instead of deploying to Kosovo, Chung went on to fly Black Hawk helicopters in Iraq.
“It’s a constant reminder that people don’t like our freedoms, the values we stand for,” he said, a water bottle in hand as he caught his breath at the end of the run.
For Bobby Simmons, 56, the attacks brought him back to the U.S. Army, where he had just retired as a lieutenant colonel.
When the Army reactivated his commission, Simmons assumed it would be for a year or less. Instead, he ended up spending another 10 years in the service and still suffers from injuries sustained from chemical exposure on deployment.
He worried that many civilians had basically forgotten the effects of the attacks — that for many people, the attacks had been an “ephemeral” event.
“You need to be part of something greater than yourself,” he said. ‘It’s unfathomable’
At 8:18 a.m., runners bolted across the pavement at Ellington Field, then, after 5 sweaty and sticky kilometers, started trickling across the finish line. ROTC crews ran in formation. Some firefighters ran in full gear, while some police officers ran in uniform and others ran wearing bulletproof vests. Family members strolled down the course with dogs in tow or pushing strollers.
The fastest runners finished in 18 or 19 minutes, while others, like Hawkins — the bomb technician weighed down by gear — needed longer. T
hough he and his fellow bomb techs typically only walk a few hundred feet in their gear, they decided to run the course in their suits as a way to honor the fallen.
As he has done every year since the attacks, Houston Police Capt. Greg Fremin couldn’t help but think of the images of people trapped in the towers jumping out the windows.
Fremin, who has served as the event’s organizer since it came to Houston six years ago, noted that the number of participants at the event nearly matched the number of American lives lost on Sept. 11.
“There are about 3,000 people here today,” he said as he gestured to the runners and spectators thronged behind him. “This is the loss of life we sustained that day. It’s unfathomable. And it gives us all the more reason never to forget.”