FLORENCE, Ky. — Through the heat waves emanating from the hot asphalt parking lot of Fire Station 31 in Florence, you see a firefighter running toward you. He’s carrying a flag that reads 343 Not Forgotten with handwritten names covering every inch of fabric.
“For most people that number is an abstract number of silhouetted faceless heroes,” said Dan Cox.
For him, the number represents 343 members of a brotherhood who ran toward the terror we all watch play out either in person or through live television as smoke poured from the Twin Towers after two planes slammed into them on Sept. 11, 2001.
“Normally you go out and deal with the emergency, you come back home. This was completely different,” Cox said. “It was guys went to help and large factions of the department, never came back.”
Dan Cox was a 16-year-old junior firefighter in Taylor Mill when the attacks took place. He said the heroism he saw as firefighters climbed stairwells while thousands of others climbed down trying to escape helped solidify his desire to become a firefighter for life.
The images in the days and weeks following the attack showed some of the heroism playing out. For example, firefighters Stephen Siller and Gary Box ran to the towers with full gear on because access with a vehicle was impossible.
“You’ll see pictures of Gary, he’s in the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel in full gear in a pack and they’re heading to the Trade Center to go deal with the problem and from that tunnel to the Trade Center is a mile and a half,” said Cox. “So that’s a mile in a half hike to get there before he can do his job.”
For the past five years, Cox has donned his equipment and ran 3.1 miles to honor those two men and the 343 firefighters in all who died on that fateful day.
This year is a little different. As part of his training, he is running a total of 343 miles in his gear ahead of the upcoming Tunnel to Towers 5K to be held at Lou Hartfiel Memorial Park in Crescent Springs on Sept. 16.
In his running journal, Cox logs something much more than miles.
“So, each day I look up a handful of guys, learn about their life, learn about the family they were taken from — not just the sacrifice they made, but how much of a hole was left because of it,” he said.
That means this year when he puts on 95 pounds of firefighting gear and runs the 5K, he’ll be running with the knowledge of those forever lost but not forgotten.
“Fathers, sons, guys who led quiet lives to guys that were in movies and TV shows,” Cox said. “They were stuntmen, some of them were farmers in their off time. A lot of them were carpenters. They were guys who did what they did on the job and they were guys that loved their off time with their family.”
He said he now works alongside firefighters and EMTs who weren’t alive when the attacks took place. That’s another reason he says he suits up and runs.
“For some of us older guys, and I’m now in the class of older guys at the firehouse, there’s guys here half my age now,” he said. “It’s important for us to be able to relate the importance of that day and why it’s important to not just remember but to never forget.”
Lesley Allen, Tunnel to Towers of Northern Kentucky race director, said seeing the guys run in their gear is a big deal, but so is "knowing that these guys are no different than him. They would have done the same thing."
Allen said the money raised goes back to the nonprofit that has a focus on building smart homes for disabled veterans, paying off mortgages and more.
“Now they are committed to taking on veteran homelessness you know they feel that nobody who signs up to fight for our country should be living on its streets,” she said.
If you’d like to take part in the Tunnel to Towers Foundation 5K Run & Walk in Northern Kentucky, you can register up until race time by heading to the website here.
If you have a veteran story to tell in your community, email homefront@wcpo.com. You also can join the Homefront Facebook group, follow Craig McKee on Facebook and find more Homefront stories here.
