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It’s big – gigantic actually – shiny, beautiful and now, it’s green – Army green that is.
Soldiers, Army civilians and their family members grabbed the KMC Unit Strength Award – the huge trophy – Oct. 24 at U.S. Army Garrison Kaiserslautern’s 2009 Red Ribbon Run on Rhine Ordnance Barracks.
What started out and remained a friendly challenge, the Unit Strength Award made its debut at this year’s event and was a competition between the three military services in the KMC – the Army, Air Force and Navy, said Heather Robinson, the garrison’s Army Substance Abuse Program prevention coordinator.
“A challenge to see which service could get the most people to show up and stand up for being a drug-free community,” said Ms. Robinson, who initiated this event in 2007 in support of the National Red Ribbon Week.
Red Ribbon Week is an alcohol, tobacco and other drug and violence prevention awareness campaign observed annually the second to last week in October throughout the United States and military installations worldwide.
Alex Tremble, the 86th Airlift Wing’s Demand Reduction Program manager, came up with the challenge.
“This event is something that brings us all together, and that is exactly what happened,” he said.
Out of the 339 runners and 147 walkers, the Air Force had 95 participants – a big jump from the two previous years when the event was a Red Ribbon Relay held at the track on Vogelweh.
The event was changed from a relay to a 5 kilometer, or 3.1 mile, run because of circles, said Tom Dennis, the garrison’s Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation sports and fitness director. The garrison’s FMWR co-sponsored the event.
“Just too many people running in circles – people would get frustrated and stop. It was just too hard to tell where it started or stopped,” he said. “So much better this year; there was a start and a finish, and runners knew their times.”
For the second year in row, the 21st Theater Sustainment Command’s 5th Quartermaster Company – “The Riggers” – won for their unit with the most participants. Another new trophy was added to this year’s event: the Most Percentage Based Unit Strength Award, which was won by the garrison’s Headquarters, Headquarters Detachment. Second place went to the Headquarters, Headquarters Battery of the 5th Battalion, 7th Air Defense Artillery.
A total of 32 individual trophies for first and second place were given to the fastest male and female runners in each of the eight age groups.
“Next year, it will be the Air Force winning that big trophy,” Mr. Tremble said.
