Yokota hosts 3rd annual 9/11 Tower Run

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Cody H. Ramirez
  • 374th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan --  More than 100 members of Team Yokota came together during the Annual 9/11 Tower Run, Sept. 11, 2015, to remember the lives lost during the hostile attack 14 years ago.

US military units throughout Yokota, along with members of the Japan Air Self-Defense Force and off-base Japanese fire fighters, participated in the event.

The tower run competition is a timed event completed relay style with 4-member teams. Each team member climbs nine flights of stairs wearing a self-contained breathing apparatus air pack. The members go one at a time, rotating off and on until each member has climbed and descended the stairs three times. By the end, each team collectively climbed 110 floors, equivalent to the World Trade Center that fire fighters and first responders climbed during 9/11.

"This is something people can participate in," Staff Sgt. Fackler, 374th Civil Engineer Squadron fire inspector and event coordinator. "It's not something you just show up to and listen to someone talk, it's something you actually take part in and do something more active to show your support."

Fackler said the event had a lot of support this year with 25 teams registering. The competition also allows teams to sign up on the spot. So many people showed up this year that two additional stairwells were opened to help facilitate the runs.

"[The amount of support shown today] symbolizes the response of the free world to an act of the aggression or terrorism and it shows that we are never, as free people, going to back down from terrorism," said Col. Douglas Delamater, 374th Airlift Wing commander. 

Delamater also spoke to the group of more than 100 people, thanking them for their support and remarking on the significance of the event.

"Never, never, never forget--that's the message today," Delamater said. "That's what these Airmen, these Japanese citizens, our brothers and sisters from around Yokota, our brothers and sister from the [Japan Air Self-Defense Force] are doing here, they are making sure that we never forget."

Participants ranged in age, experience and background, but one specifically recalled 9/11 and appreciated the amount of supporters who participated.

"I had a close friend of mine pass away at the World Trade Center, so this means remembering them, not just  my friend, but everyone that died that day," Special Agent Yasmine Favela, Office of Special Investigations Detachment 621.

"I'm not going to lie, it was painful," Favela said. "Especially going up my third time, I was out of breath and my legs were tired, but I pushed though. I kept thinking about those first responders that went up and down the towers on 9/11."

At the end of the event, winners of three categories won trophies. Money gained from donations and t-shirt sales went toward the wounded warrior project. 

It has been 14 years since the attack on 9/11, but it has not been forgotten.