My partner and I, fellow Firefighter Tim Lawrence, ran in this remark able event on Saturday October 13th in Plainfield, NJ. We are from the Boston area. We drove 300 miles that morning to get to Princeton - the second half of the New Jersey race. We arrived at about 4:30 pm after 5.5 hours of driving. We were kind of tired. We were lucky, though, the race was running a couple hours behind at the time. So, we had about 2 hours to rest.

The crew that was running the flag to our position needed a little help. Paul asked for volunteers to go back 6 miles or so to relieve the guys. They were tired. Tim and 2 pilots - Bill and Ed - got in Ed's wife's car and we drove north on Route 1 in attempt to meet up with the group from Menlo Park.

We saw them, jumped... It seemed surreal. An experience we won't forget. We left Boston that morning not knowing exactly what would happen and now, here we were running with the flag down Route 1 - which goes right through our area back home. We ran back to our original position in and keep going with the group we were originally with - towards Trenton and eventually into Pennsylvania. We went about 10 miles or so and started heading back home.

We met some really nice people out there and we're so glad we went. We won't forget all the great new friends we made.

On the way back, we stopped in NYC for a brief visit to ground zero. We didn't make all the way to the site, but we offered a quick prayer and whisked our way back to Lynn, MA.

Tim's sister in Colorado ran with the flag a couple weeks later New Mexico. I know that made Timmy very proud. His mother called Timmy's wife Joan in Massachusetts yesterday to give them the news. She was very excited to have both of them involved in the flag run. My mother told me she was very proud of me, too. Imagine, we are both in our 40's, and we are thrilled to have our mother's call us and say how proud they are of us.

Great trip - won't forget it.

Tom Bogart, Fire Lieutenant
Lynn, MA Fire Department

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