09/12/2026
Running with Honor
Etiquette for the Travis Manion Foundation 9/11 Heroes Run
This weekend, communities across the country gather for the Travis Manion Foundation 9/11 Heroes Run — a 5K of remembrance on the 25th anniversary of September 11, 2001.
Here in Northern Virginia, families will meet at Oakton Elementary School on Sunday morning: opening ceremony at 7:40 a.m., with the Fairfax County Police Department Pipe and Drum and Honor Guard, and the race at 8:00 a.m. 
It is not merely a timed event. It honors those lost on 9/11, the first responders who ran toward the danger, and the service members who stepped forward in the years that followed — including 1stLt Travis Manion, USMC, killed in Iraq in 2007 while protecting his fellow Marines. Before that final deployment he left five words that still ask something of us:
If Not Me, Then Who…
For our students — elementary through high school — the course is another place to practice what we teach at Cotillion: honor, dignity, and respect.
Remember why we gather.
Tell your children, before the gun sounds, whose courage made this morning possible. A generation has grown up without a firsthand memory of that day. This run exists so they will understand it.
Stand still for the ceremony.
When the pipes begin, when the Honor Guard takes its place, when silence is asked — stop. Hands at your sides. Caps off. Phones down. Stillness is one of the finest compliments we can offer the fallen and their families.
Dress with quiet dignity.
Neat, modest athletic attire is always correct. Patriotic colors are welcome; costumes and slogans that draw the eye to ourselves are not. Let those remembered be the focus.
Cheer after the silence, not through it.
Warm encouragement on the course is gracious. Whooping through a wreath, a name read aloud, or a moment of remembrance is not. Applause after the ceremony is often the more fitting sound.
Give space to families, flags, and the Honor Guard.
Do not crowd photographs, memorials, or those in uniform. If a Gold Star or 9/11 family is standing quietly, pass with a nod. Children may be taught, gently, that some moments are for looking and learning — not for posing.
Live “If Not Me, Then Who…”
The most elegant courtesy after the finish is a sincere thank-you to volunteers, veterans, first responders, and organizers — and a willingness, in ordinary days ahead, to be the one who steps forward.
Character is not reserved for the ballroom. It is practiced beside the flag, in the silence, and in the words we choose once we are home.
Never forget.
Honor. Dignity. Respect.
— National League of Junior Cotillions®
Loudoun County Chapter
