For Run for Fallen, each mile is a salute

Stretch honors 143 dead Arkansans

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/RICK MCFARLAND --03/18/15--  Air Force Chief Master Sgt. Bubba Beason, stationed at Little Rock Air Force Base, who founded the state's Run for the Fallen — a 146-mile run to honor the 146 Arkansans killed in the War on Terror was honored along with his family members by the state House of Representatives Wednesday. The run will end Sunday at the Capitol steps. Rep. Brandt Smith, R-Jonesboro, sponsored a resolution to support the Run for the Fallen.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/RICK MCFARLAND --03/18/15-- Air Force Chief Master Sgt. Bubba Beason, stationed at Little Rock Air Force Base, who founded the state's Run for the Fallen — a 146-mile run to honor the 146 Arkansans killed in the War on Terror was honored along with his family members by the state House of Representatives Wednesday. The run will end Sunday at the Capitol steps. Rep. Brandt Smith, R-Jonesboro, sponsored a resolution to support the Run for the Fallen.

From memory, Chief Master Sgt. Bubba Beason can list off each of the 143 Arkansas service members honored in the state's annual Run for the Fallen, each mile of which is dedicated to an Arkansan who died on active duty during the war on terror.

He knows the 125th mile is for U.S. Army Cpl. Loren Buffalo, a 20-year-old Mountain Home native who was killed in Kandahar in 2011 when enemy forces attacked his unit with a makeshift bomb.

Miles 50 and 51 belong to a pair of Navy SEALs -- Chief Petty Officer Adam L. Brown and Senior Chief Petty Officer Thomas A. Ratzlaff -- who were killed in Afghanistan a year apart, Beason said. And mile 132 is for Capt. Aaron D. Cox, who died stateside during a combat exercise preparing for deployment.

"I can name from mile 1 to 143 of the ones that hearing their story touches me," Beason said. "Two weeks after these guys die, the only people who remember them is their family, which is wrong. This is something to make sure these guys are never forgotten."

Beason, an airman who lives in Beebe and is stationed at Little Rock Air Force Base in Jacksonville, worked to establish the Arkansas Run for the Fallen in 2011, the same year 11 of his friends died on active duty. Because of his efforts to create the event, Beason, 41, was nominated this year for the U.S. Department of Defense's Spirit of Hope Award, an award he has been nominated for before.

The award was named for entertainer Bob Hope, and every year it goes to one person nominated by each branch of the armed forces. Beason is the nominee from Air Mobility Command, one of the Air Force's 10 major commands. The overall Air Force nominee will be announced this summer.

Beason, self-described as loud, boisterous and straightforward, returned from his 16th deployment this month. He's part of the 19th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron and, according to a Little Rock Air Force Base release, he volunteered approximately 1,200 hours in 2014 organizing the Run for the Fallen.

Every year, he wears a steel memorial bracelet with the name of a different Arkansas service member. This year's is for Tech. Sgt. John Brown of Siloam Springs. At the end of the run, Beason will give the bracelet to Brown's family.

"That way, people ask me who John Brown was, and I say, 'Well, let me tell you who he was,'" Beason said. "His is mile 133, right in the middle of Maumelle."

Beason also recently took over the Arkansas Fallen Heroes Memorial, a traveling display put together by Rob Hopper of Wynne, the father of a Marine who was killed in a helicopter crash in 2005.

'We'll run for you'

Beason was Air Mobility Command's nominee for the Spirit of Hope Award in 2010 when he was stationed at McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey. In 2009, he created New Jersey's annual Run for the Fallen, and he is currently helping a group start one in South Carolina.

Others have established similar events in Virginia, Indiana, New York, Illinois and Arizona.

The idea for Run for the Fallen started in 2008 with Jon Bellona.

In 2008, Bellona organized a group to run across the U.S. to honor his friend, 1st Lt. Michael J. Cleary, who was killed in Iraq. Beason ran the last stretch from the Pentagon to Arlington National Cemetery, and Bellona encouraged participants to start similar events in each state.

"We run a mile for Michael Cleary every year, just because that's how it all started," said Beason's wife, Angela.

Money raised from Arkansas' run goes to Hearts of our Heroes Camp, a free 4-H camp for children of the state's fallen service members.

On Wednesday, state Rep. Brandt Smith, R-Jonesboro, read a resolution on the House floor supporting the Run for the Fallen and recognizing Beason, and Fran Marshall and Deborah Johnson, two mothers of deceased service members.

In the resolution, Smith said the event was "an opportunity to provide support, hope and healing to families grieving the death of a loved one in military service."

According to the Department of Defense's casualty analysis system, 89 Arkansas service members died in Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation New Dawn. Beason said the Run for the Fallen also counts those who die in car wrecks, commit suicide or die of illnesses while on active duty.

This year, they added a mile for Master Sgt. Dan Wassom II, a soldier with the Arkansas National Guard who died when a tornado struck his Vilonia home last April.

"We don't make a distinction," Beason said. "You wear a uniform and you die, we'll run for you."

'Not going to forget'

About 90 runners -- all of them Marines, soldiers or airmen -- started running from Ozark to Little Rock on Thursday, and they'll finish at the Arkansas Capitol steps today. At the end of every mile, they plant a flag, as well as a card with a service member's photo and biography.

People will join in for the last 5K of the run starting at 1:40 p.m. at the U.S. Military Entrance Processing Station at 1520 Riverfront Drive in Little Rock, where "a lot of these guys entered the military," Beason said.

Families of 60 of the service members will be present when the runners finish the mile for their loved ones.

"Everybody moves on with life, and these families are still dealing with it every day," Angela Beason said. "This says that as a state, we're not going to forget, and their family's sacrifice hasn't been forgotten."

During the past few years, the run has developed a personality, Beason said. Each section is unique.

For 14 miles on Arkansas 64 between Morrilton and Atkins, "it's just us all alone," he said. "It's quiet, it's peaceful, and for those 30 seconds to a minute when we read the bio card, salute and put it in the ground, it's serene -- just special, you know?"

In Hartman, the elementary school empties out, and students chant "U-S-A" as the runners go past.

Near the Big Dam Bridge in Little Rock, two soldiers who were injured in the same attack that killed Cabot native Sgt. Jason M. Swindle will walk Swindle's mile.

In Russellville, Beason expects to see the widow and two children of Staff Sgt. Jerry D. Reed II, who died of unspecified causes in Afghanistan just weeks before the Run for the Fallen in 2012.

"I never forget it," Beason said. "We put his mile right in the middle of Russellville, where he was from. We couldn't contact the family but tried to. I remember I was running that mile, and I set the flag in the ground and said a few words. We saluted it, and when I look up, I see a woman and two kids standing off in the distance.

"So me, I never met a stranger, I walk up to them and ask if they're family. She says, 'Yes, these are Jerry's kids.' I scooped them up -- they were still young -- and I say, 'I'm never going to forget your daddy as long as I live.'

"It's just things like that. You see that, and you wish everybody else could witness it."

Metro on 03/22/2015

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