Tom's Run 2000Tom's Run 2000
First Rate and Loads of Fun!
By PAC Edward J. Kruska, USCGR
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Coast Guard carried out its second consecutive Tom’s Run Relay with great enthusiasm as evidenced by the huge turnout June 9-10. Tom’s Run is held annually to raise awareness of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and is named in honor of CWO4 Tom Brooks, USCG(Ret.), who contracted ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig‘s disease) in early 1999. The event also serves as a team building and logistics challenge.
 CAPT Frank Buckley, running, and LCDR Cathy Tobias negotiate the aqueduct at Williamsport, Md. Photo by CWO Joseph Lenoir, USCG |
Participants in Tom’s Run negotiate a relay down the historic C&O Canal towpath from Cumberland, Md. to Washington, D.C. This year, five teams, all associated with the Coast Guard or other military services, ran the entire length of the canal with a bike escort, and finished 193 miles later at the U.S. Army’s Fort McNair next to CG Headquarters in Washington, D.C. Team Coast Guard was fully represented. A huge caravan of vehicles followed the teams down the canal cheering them on at exchange points along the way. The staggered relay began early June 9 and continued all day long and through the night before finishing at Fort McNair the next morning. |
The five teams included Doug’s Slugs (Office of Reserve Affairs, Team Captain LCDR Darrell Prather); Green Allocators (HQ Second Deckers, Team Captain LCDR Peter Troedsson); Balt-thesda Ballistics (Baltimore area Coasties and Bethesda Naval Medical Center personnel, Team Captain LCDR Rick Wharton); Midnight Madness (Tidewater, Va. area, Team Captain LT Joseph McConnell); Surf & Turf (G-W and G-S, Team Captain LTJG Craig Toomey).
"Being my first year involved in it, I quickly began to realize the amount of behind the scenes planning that had to be done to make this event run smoothly," said LCDR Bill Ziegler of the Green Allocators. "It felt good to get out of HQ for a day and regain a reality check of the real priorities of life."
| Brooks, powered by an electric
wheel chair, led over 150 people in a "victory lap" around Fort McNair prior to
a ceremony attended by ADM James M. Loy, MCPO-CG Vince Patton and Dr. Pat Frieberg,
Executive Director of the National Capital Chapter of ALS. Coast Guard Reservist CAPT Lou
Farrell emceed the ceremony. "I had two events to go to this morning," Loy told the crowd. "One was a meeting at the Pentagon and the other was this. I sent the new Vice Commandant to the Pentagon because I wanted to be here with other Coast Guardsmen." |
 Above: CWO4 Tom Brooks leads a large group of Team Coast Guard in a "Victory Lap" around Fort McNair at the conclusion of Tom's Run II. Photo by PAC Edward J. Kruska, USCGR. |
Said Freiberg, "I have learned that when the USCG puts their collective minds together to doing something, they do it right. Tom’s Run was first rate! Not only was it well organized, it was so much fun."
Event coordinator was LT Daryl Schaffer, USCGR, the Office of Reserve Affairs and sponsored by the Chief Warrant Officers Association Washington, D.C. Chapter. The CWOA donated $1,400 to the National Capital Chapter of ALS.
 ADM James M. Loy, right, presents a Tom’s Run poster to Brooks and his wife, Debra, at the Tom’s Run II ceremony. Photo by PA2 Chris Rose, USCGR. |
"An event such as this is
worthy of an ongoing commitment and our chapter would like to begin that commitment by
announcing our official sponsorship of next years Tom’s Run 2001," said CWO2 Joe
Lenoir, President of the CWOA D.C. Chapter. Tom’s Run III is slated for June 8-9 2001 so get your team ready. A cover story featuring last year’s Tom’s Run was published in the August 1999 Reservist, on-line at www.uscg.mil/reserve. |