Annual 5K honors memory of metro Atlanta Green Beret who enlisted after best friend's death on 9/11
On Saturday, hundreds of runners will gather for an annual 5K to remember a Green Beret who served in memory of his best friend.
Staff Sgt. Ryan Means enlisted in the Army after his childhood friend died in the Sept. 11 attacks.
Michael Means says his older brother was fixated on joining the military since they were children.
"In the backyard, we would dig foxholes. We watched every single military movie multiple times," Means said. "He even wrote to the Marine Corps when he was 7 that he wanted to enlist. And two weeks later, we had a Marine show up at our door asking for Ryan Means."
Growing up in Brookhaven, military service ran in the Means family. Means says their father was a Marine. But after Ryan lost his best friend since childhood, Adam White, in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he decided to enlist in the Army at 31.
"Ryan kind of had this tough attitude throughout his life, and I think that he always liked a challenge. He loved just the history of the United States. My uncle was in the Vietnam War, so I just think it was kind of in his DNA," Michael Means said.
Ryan completed basic training and Airborne School at Fort Benning, then special forces training at Fort Bragg. He rose to staff sergeant. In 2009, while on tour in Iraq, Ryan was diagnosed with a rare liver cancer and sent back to the U.S. for treatment.
"It was difficult because he didn't have the ability to have the mindset that something couldn't go in the direction that he wanted it to," said Health Means, Ryan's wife.
She said Ryan fought hard, determined to beat the disease. He died later that year, leaving behind her and their two young daughters, Elizabeth and Sophie.
"I never had a very personal connection, like a person that I had personally lost in 9/11," Heather Means said. "But then, after I lost Ryan - not just when I met him, but when I lost him - it almost seemed like the two were joined together because one thing led to the other. So without that, if 9/11 wouldn't have happened, I never would have met Ryan. I wouldn't have my children … Everything changed because of 9/11. So, that event changed my life."
Now in its 15th year, Ryan's loved ones hold an annual 5K in his honor, raising money for the Shepherd Center. Michael Means says many of the participants have ties to the school where Ryan Means and Adam White met, and where Ryan's daughters later attended elementary school.
"The younger generation--they wanted to remember what happened during 9/11," he said. "So a lot of students from Christ the King [School] did come to the race over the years, along with baseball players from Buckhead Baseball."
The family says the event has raised about $2.5 million over the years; a plaque at the American Legion post in Buckhead also honors Ryan's service and sacrifice.
"It's overwhelming," Heather Means said. "Especially because it started just being all of our friends. We knew almost every single person we knew somehow personally. And now…not that many people that we're really close with can always make it, but there's 500, 700 people that just show up every year, and it's a really great feeling."
The RPM 9/11 5K is taking place Saturday at Chastain Park outside the American Legion Post 140 on Powers Ferry Road. Anyone interested can learn more here.
