Flags will be presented in Portland

Organizers weren’t sure they wanted to hold the third annual Indiana Run for the Fallen on Mother’s Day weekend.

But the families of those being honored made the decision clear.

“After we started talking to Gold Star families, the mothers were really excited about it,” said Portland’s Donald Gillespie, who is organizing a group of 19 core runners. “What better way for them to spend Mother’s Day than to stand at their son or daughter’s marker and hear their son or daughter’s name called out loud.”

Gillespie, for the third straight year, will also be one of those runners who will start from Fort Wayne on Friday morning and make the three-day, 150-mile run to Indianapolis in honor of those who have died in military service during the war on terror.

The format for Indiana Run for the Fallen is the same as in each of its first two years, with participants stopping every mile to honor one or more fallen soldiers. Four teams of runners will take turns covering the distance — 52 miles on the first day, 58 on the second and 40 on the third — while carrying with them the American, Indiana, Honor and Remember, and Honor and Sacrifice flags.

The run starts with an opening ceremony at Allen County War Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne and is scheduled to conclude with a closing ceremony at 1 p.m. May 14 at Veterans Memorial Plaza in Indianapolis.

Among the honorees will be Spc. Nick Taylor, a South Adams High School graduate who died in Afghanistan in 2012, and Lance Cpl. Andrew Whitacre, a Bryant native who died in Afghanistan in 2008. Taylor’s marker will be near the intersection of U.S. 27 and Indiana 218 in Berne, and Whitacre’s will be at the intersection of Hendricks and Williams streets near Bryant Wesleyan Church.

The first day of the event will end in Portland, with runners scheduled to hit the north side of the city about 4:30 p.m. and arrive at Freedom Park 10 minutes later.

A closing ceremony, which will include U.S. Rep. Jim Banks, will be held at the park, with Honor and Remember flags being presented to the families of 1st Lt. Neale Shank and Sgt. Nicholas J. Patterson.

Shank’s sister, Naomi Beiswanger, a Jay County resident, made the request to have the flag presented to her mother. Neale, who went to Concordia High School, graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 2005 and was killed in Iraq in 2007.

“It means a lot to our family because Neale definitely believed in our military,” said Beiswanger. “He believed in what himself and the fellow soldiers were doing over in Iraq. For this to be the 10 year, it’s hard, but at the same point, Neale believed in what he was doing, so we stand by that. He had a love for his country and a love for his family to go fight.”

The Honor and Remember flags are typically presented to families in the soldier’s hometown on anniversaries of birth or death dates. But one was presented to the family of Lance Cpl. Cameron Babcock in Portland last year, and the impact of that moment led to the decision to give flags to the families of Shank and Patterson next weekend.

Those presentations, and all of the stops along the way, are poignant moments for both the families and the Run for the Fallen participants.

“The physical toll on our bodies is nothing compared to the emotional,” said Gillespie, who next year will organize 400 runners for a national run that will stretch more than 6,000 miles from California to Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia through 19 states over 120 days. “When you see little kids holding signs up, ‘We miss our daddy,’ if that doesn’t tug at your heart knowing they’re never going to see their father again … But then you start knowing these families. …

“It is an emotional experience for anybody, I think.”

Runners will spend the night in Portland before leaving Saturday morning from Freedom Park and running down Water Street and Tyson Road before turning southwest on Indiana 67. Day two will take them to Anderson, with day three continuing on to Indianapolis.