Though it's been eight long years, Lt. Col. Kevin McNeely still remembers April 19, 1995, as if it were yesterday. And McNeely, who commands the 1^st Battalion, 180th Infantry, Oklahoma Army National Guard on a six-month Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) peacekeeping mission in the Sinai Desert, still finds it hard to talk about that day.

Lt. Col. Kevin McNeely

But the Norman, Oklahoma resident, who as a civilian works for HUD in Oklahoma City, joined his troops who decided to run the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon, held on the anniversary of the bombing of the Murrah Building that killed 168 people, including 35 of his friends.

McNeely said recently that he still has to "psych himself up" to talk to people about the bombing because the horrific memories still haunt him today. "The first thing that goes through my mind are the people I knew who were killed," he said. "The names and faces are the first thing I think of and, while I wasn't in the building when it happened, I still have a lot of emotional feelings."

Running in the desert is thirsty business

Runners from the Oklahoma Army National Guard

McNeely, who was working for the Department in Washington at the time of the bombing, had been trying to land a job in Oklahoma City and was close to many of its employees. "That's why when it [the marathon] was first brought to my attention, I had a tough time talking about it and all I could say was yes, we'll do it."

McNeely's support was matched at MFO headquarters overseas and back in the States, where marathon President and Co-founder Thomas Hill vowed to support the desert run in every way possible, including offering to comp all the participants' entry fees.

Enthusiasm for the event spread like wildfire, with eventually some 100 participants from soldiers on active duty, including some from Italy and Hungary.

Chet Collier, the marathon's executive director, called it "awe-inspiring," adding that the active duty soldiers who participated in the marathon were able to even think about it while their own lives were at peril in far away lands.

Though participants ran or walked the 26.2-mile course for different reasons, they all remembered the victims and survivors of that fateful day. Perhaps MFO Chief of Staff Col. Keith Cooper, who ran the event, said it best. The Woodbridge, Virginia, native said it was not a race about finishing first, it was about remembering and honoring those who lost their lives in the Oklahoma City bombing.

The Marathon gets underway	Team Italy