This weekend would have marked the 31st birthday of Binghamton alumnus and crew team member John J. McKenna IV, class of 1998. It also marked the fourth anniversary of a war that has claimed more than 3,000 lives.

And McKenna was one of them.

To honor the fallen marine, the Binghamton Crew team will be holding the inaugural John McKenna Memorial 5K Walk/Run, Saturday, March 24.

The event, to be held at Recreation Park on the West Side of Binghamton, will raise money for charity and the purchase of a men’s varsity boat named after McKenna.

‘Crew team is like a family,’ said Michael Eichler, the chairman of the memorial 5K committee. ‘The more years you’re on it, the closer you are to people on the team.’

And although McKenna graduated before today’s crew members would have had the chance to row with him, it is still as if ‘part of the extended family has passed away,’ said Eichler, captain of the men’s varsity team and a sophomore history major.

Registration is open to anyone until the 5K race begins at 9:30 a.m. A 400-meter children’s fun race will begin at 9 a.m.

Besides including the women’s varsity swim team, at least two sororities and crew alumni from along the East Coast, the committee has worked to include the local community and has sent invitations to the Binghamton Mayor Matthew T. Ryan and the City Council. The Triple Cities Runners Club will be overseeing the finish line and tabulating the race results.

Half of the proceeds will go toward the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund and the John J. McKenna IV Scholarship care of the New York State Trooper Scholarship Fund. The other half will go toward an eponymous boat for the crew team.

‘They worked hard, played hard and rowed hard, and made friendships that lasted a lifetime,’ said his mother, Karen McKenna. But, as evidenced by the upcoming race, even after the end of McKenna’s life, the union between the Binghamton Crew and John McKenna carries on.

McKenna, a 30-year-old captain in the United States Marine Corps, had gone to help a mortally wounded Marine when he was killed by a sniper in Fallujah’s Anbar Province in Iraq on Aug. 16, 2006. He was single and did not have any children.

After his death, his crew friends traveled from across the country to his wake in his hometown of Brooklyn and then to his funeral in Saratoga, N.Y., where he and his family were living.

‘One flew from California ‘ [another] drove up from Washington, D.C., to be with me,’ said Karen. ‘They’re loyal to one another.’

Friends wanted to make the trip, but also felt they had to.

‘He would have done it for us,’ said roommate and teammate Craig Riegelhaupt, also class of 1998.

McKenna volunteered to serve again in Iraq after having already served in Uzbekistan and Afghanistan after Sept. 11, and also served a tour in Iraq during the initial invasion in 2003.

On Feb. 27, McKenna was posthumously awarded the State Senate Liberty Medal and the State Conspicuous Service Cross adding to his list of military awards. He was also a lifeguard, an Eagle Scout and a New York State Trooper.

‘Years after he graduated and not too long before John left for his last tour in Iraq, John told me that the best years of his life were his years with the crew team,’ Reigelhaupt said.

McKenna rowed for Binghamton Crew for four years until he graduated in 1998 with a history degree. Riegelhaupt rowed with him for three of those years. In their senior year, the two friends won in the four-man lightweight race at the Metropolitan Regatta held in New Rochelle, N.Y., a competition that included teams from around the northeast.

Riegelhaupt and McKenna, along with two other crew members, shared an apartment in Hillside Community during their junior and senior years. They woke up at 5 a.m. six days a week to go to practice.

After practice, crew members ate breakfast at Dickinson Dining Hall. Then McKenna and Riegelhaupt would return to their apartment and watch television. ‘We’d fall asleep on opposite sides of the couch,’ Riegelhaupt said.

According to Riegelhaupt, the bonds of friendship that were forged during those 5 a.m wake-ups even lasted after college.

‘We kept in contact quite a bit,’ he said, remembering the time McKenna called him from Germany on his way to fight overseas. The two used to talk on the phone once or twice a month.

And even after McKenna’s death, Riegelhaupt stays in contact with McKenna’s mother, Karen. Had it not been for the heavy snowfall, Riegelhaupt would have spent last weekend with McKenna’s family for the Marine’s birthday.

‘I consider her a second mom,’ he said.

Riegalhaupt said he has trouble putting McKenna’s passing into words. He lost more than a teammate in Iraq this summer.

‘I lost a best friend,’ he said.

The race is being held at Recreation Park, located on Binghamton’s West Side between Seminary Avenue and Laurel Avenue. For more information about the first annual John McKenna Memorial 5K race and to register, visit binghamtoncrew.org or e-mail McKenna5K@binghamtoncrew.org.