ROTC cadets pay tribute to fallen Iraqi war hero
Grueling race honors Pitt graduate
The Army likes to say it does “more before 9 a.m. than most people do all day.”
Proof was offered at 5:50 a.m. Monday when young University of Pittsburgh military cadets ran a grueling two-mile race in tribute to an alumnus who died in combat in Iraq nearly a decade ago.
Nine Pitt ROTC squads, each comprising nine cadets, ran in the predawn cold from a lawn near the Cathedral of Learning to Panther Hollow, where they gathered up 350 pounds of stuff per team — tires, bags of sand, dumbbells — and hauled it all back as fast as they could.
The winning team was the Fourth Squad, First Battalion, with a time of 30 minutes 24 seconds.
After the race, the cadets gathered at Bellefield Hall, where Pitt’s ROTC offices are located, for the dedication of a classroom in the name of Army Capt. Mark Resh, a 2001 Pitt grad and Apache helicopter pilot shot down in a fierce firefight in Iraq.
A native of suburban Allentown, Pa., Capt. Resh, 28, and another officer, Cornell Chao, 36, flew their helicopter as bait to draw fire away from a second helicopter during a daylong
battle near An Jajaf on Jan. 28, 2007. Insurgents shot down the chopper and both men died, but the other helicopter got away.
The families of both men were presented with the Silver Star for valor at a 2008 ceremony at Fort Hood, Texas, where a classroom building has also been named for Capt. Resh.
There have been other tributes to him, too. Last year at the annual Mountain Man Memorial March in Tennessee, an ROTC group from Kent State University ran in his honor.
That run gave his mother, Carol Resh, the idea to contact Pitt to see if anything similar had been planned or could be.
It wasn’t, but Sgt. James Henderson and his ROTC colleagues at Pitt saw an opportunity. They have been trying to build an archive of the ROTC’s alumni here to serve as an inspiration for young cadets on campus. So they put together what they call a “Hero PT” for Capt. Resh. PT is Army lingo for physical training.
Sgt. Henderson said Capt. Resh personified the values of the ROTC and provides a powerful link between past and present for young officers-to-be. “I think it’s important that we know who came before,” he said. “We owe a debt.”
Carol Resh and her husband, Charles, made the trip to watch the race and address the cadets afterward in the classroom named for Mark.
“I saw a lot of leaders in the room,” Mrs. Resh said.
She thanked them for their service, and told them to set goals and then go after them.
“Our son set goals for himself,” she said, “and he met his goals.”
Later she said the event was an appropriate thing to do for her son and for the ROTC.
“To see those ROTC cadets doing the same thing he did 15 years ago, it was an honor to see that. We were just really honored and are proud of our son.”
Capt. Resh is buried in Allentown.