News of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks reached Paul Ritchie at a pub in Australia. The veteran firefighter soon was back at the firehouse, watching the happenings in Washington and New York with his mates.
Nearly nine years later, Ritchie is event director for Tour of Duty, a coast-to-coast run honoring fellow emergency service workers who died in those attacks as they were trying save the lives of others.
On Tuesday, the 36 U.S. and Australian runners arrived in Washington, nearing the end of their 31-day journey from California to New York. They’re scheduled to arrive at their final destination — ground zero — on Saturday.
“This run is a statement of hope [in a] world of financial gloom and terrorist alerts and it reflects the supreme values of humanity: mateship, comradery and self-sacrifice,” he said.
Ben Schmidt, a firefighter from Australia, said the runners are divided into groups of 12, with each member running 30 minutes in each six-hour shift.
For Schmidt, the run is a “way of remembering the guys and girls that went out there and sacrificed everything so that others could live.”
As a firefighter who went from Chicago to New York to help with relief efforts, Patrick Maloney said the run is a powerful experience honoring people who lost their lives. He said a list of 9/11 victims in Washington, New York and Pennsylvania is read before each day’s run begins, with each mile dedicated to a person who died in the attacks.
Leon Colbert, a firefighter from Queensland, Australia, said this event was unlike any marathon he had run, saying it was “the ultimate homage I could to pay those who lost their lives in 9/11.”
Colbert described the overall Tour of Duty experience as emotional, recalling a man who had little to give but brought the group water one day and ran with them for 200 meters. Colbert said that in the past 10 years on the job, he has cried a few times. But in the past month on this trip, has shed tears at least a dozen times.
“I’d give up everything to do this again,” Colbert said, reflecting on the life experiences he has gained since the run started Aug. 12. “I can’t imagine anything that would top [this].”
