5K run in Virginia Beach gives back to wounded service members

VIRGINIA BEACH

After he lost a leg in battle in 2004, Ed Salau witnessed firsthand the generosity of groups focused on helping wounded military service members.

Ever since, he said, he has wanted to return the favor to those charities and to other wounded soldiers, Marines and sailors. So when Tim Crowley, co-founder of the Wounded Marine and Family Assistance Program, asked him to help with a 5-kilometer run and fundraiser in Virginia Beach, his response was swift: Of course.

On Saturday, Salau sounded an air horn on the grounds of Regent University that unleashed a wave of about 250 men, women and children who had come to run and raise money for the Virginia Beach-based nonprofit.

The event was expected to raise nearly $7,500 for the group's assistance efforts, said Crowley, a marketing business owner who said he felt compelled to join with two Marines last year to establish the group.

"We saw the need, and we wanted to help," he said.

Salau spent 12 years in the Marine Corps before joining the Army National Guard in 2000. Four years later, he lost his leg in a rocket-propelled grenade attack near Tikrit, Iraq, and medically retired in 2005. He works as the civilian liaison for the Wounded Warrior Battalion at Camp Lejeune, N.C., where he helps arrange assistance for ill or injured Marines and their families.

Supporting the troops, he said, "is more than just putting that yellow magnet on the trunk of your car." Crowley's group actively looks for ways to help those who need it, Salau said, and he was happy to help.

Merle Martin of Suffolk drives home each weekend from Camp Lejeune, where he is the Navy psychiatrist serving the 2nd Marine Division. He and his son, Zachary, 9, weren't about to miss the race.

"It's not much, but it's something we can do to show we're there for them," he said shortly before heading to the start.

David Powers agreed. He and his wife, Lisa, and their son, Joshua, 6, ran in the group's inaugural 5K last year, and they returned Saturday.

For Powers, a chief hospital corpsman at Norfolk Naval Station, the race was a way "to support my brothers."

"Any time I can help them out, any where I can help them, I will," he said.

Shawn Day, (757) 222-5131, shawn.day@pilotonline.com