Marine Sergeant William Simpson, 25, will be carrying a heavy burden when he runs the five miles of the July 4th Mattapoisett Road Race on Saturday. With a heavy heart and a 70-pound pack on his back, Simpson, a Mattapoisett native and graduate from Old Rochester Regional High School, will be wearing his fatigues while he runs the race to honor seven fellow special forces Marines killed when their U.S. Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter crashed during a training mission near Eglin, Florida on March 10. Five of the young men, said Simpson, were close friends of his.
Last year, Simpson ran the 5K with a 45-pound pack on his back in honor of his friend Marine Sergeant William Woitowitz, who was killed in Afghanistan on June 7, 2011. Simpson recalled his run last year during a cellphone interview on June 30 from his airplane in San Diego getting ready to take off for Boston that afternoon.
“As I was running, I kept hearing people say, ‘Oh, good job!’ And ‘Hey, number 858!’” said Simpson. “I kept wondering, why does everybody love this boy so much and I started looking around. I asked my buddy, ‘Hey what number am I?’ Then I realized I was 858.”
He knew he wanted to run the race again this year and contemplated running with a 50-pound pack, even though he described last year’s run as “miserable.” He decided, instead, that he would fill his pack this time with two 35-pound weights – ten pounds for each of the seven fallen friends.
With a little optimism in his voice, he hopes the weather will be less hot and that he will be able to run the entire race without having to slow down to a walk at some point before crossing the finish line.
“My goal is to finish in the same time as last year,” said Simpson, although this year his weight will be almost doubled. And adding to the pain will be the chafing of the pack against a fresh tattoo on his back. The tattoo depicts a ship with seven cannons, one for each of the Marines who were killed. In the background, he said, is a rendering of a lighthouse from the hometown of one of the Marines.
So if you are struggling to reach the finish line on Saturday when you spot Simpson running those Mattapoisett miles sweating and panting in his fatigues carrying the weight of the loss of his friends, Simpson said you can draw inspiration from that to get yourself through the pain to the end.
“It’s not the distance, it’s the pain,” said Simpson. “But it’s nothing like the pain the wives and daughters of the seven Marines who died have to deal with. There is physical pain, but it doesn’t hurt as much as the pain of the loss of someone you love.”
The names of the seven Marines that Simpson is honoring are Staff Sgt. Kerry Kemp, 27; Staff Sgt. Marcus Bawol, 26; Staff Sgt. Andrew Seif, 26; Staff Sgt. Trevor Blaylock, 29; Captain Stanford H. Shaw III, 31; Master Sgt. Thomas A. Saunders, 33; and Staff Sgt. Liam A. Flynn, 33. All were from the 2nd Special Operations Battalion of the U.S. Marine Corps Special Operations Command.
By Jean Perry
