FORT RILEY, Kan. – Thousands of soldiers laced up running shoes instead of boots and hit the asphalt to help celebrate the Army's oldest division and honor members who have died in combat.

The 5-mile run Tuesday by 12,000 soldiers of the 1st Infantry Division was part of its first Victory Week celebration. The division's headquarters is here, as is most soldiers' housing.

Fort Riley expects the weeklong celebration to draw thousands of families, former soldiers and supporters to the post. The week is heavy on athletic competitions, but a ceremony to honor fallen soldiers is scheduled for Thursday.

The family of Spc. Ross McGinnis also will unveil a stone honoring their son, who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in June for jumping on a grenade to save the lives of fellow soldiers during an attack in Iraq.

“We're going to get to see a lot of the family members, some of the wounded warriors, and that's an important thing,” said Lt. Col. Eric Timmerman, commander of an infantry battalion.

Some soldiers participating in the week's event returned in recent months from duty in Iraq. Staff Sgt. Todd Hegeman and Sgt. Ed Herring were part of a battalion that spent 15 months in Baghdad and saw 12 soldiers die.

Hegeman is proud of his battalion's service – and says it did enough work for two units of the same size. But, he acknowledged, “We got our nose bloodied.”

Herring added, “Based on the number of causalities, it wasn't exactly a good deployment.”

Fort Riley has seen 153 of its troops die in Iraq or Afghanistan, most of them from 1st Infantry Division.

The 1st Division, the Army's Big Red One, formed in 1917 for World War I. The division has fought in every U.S. conflict since then, except Korea. It takes its name from the red “1” worn on soldiers' left sleeve.

Lt. Col. Pat Frank, who has been with the division for three years at Fort Riley, said Victory Week links current soldiers with those who fought across Europe and in Vietnam.

“I think there's a lot of pride,” Frank said. “It is important to have an event like this bond soldiers around that unity of the divisional patch.”

Victory Week is named for Lady Victory, a symbol of the division since World War I. A statue of her was erected in Washington, D.C., following that war.

The division now has an aviation brigade in Iraq and an infantry brigade in Afghanistan, with another brigade slated to go to Iraq later this year.

More than 15,600 soldiers are assigned to Fort Riley, and the number is expected to grow to 18,600 within five years. The Army is spending more than $1 billion on new barracks, motor pools and other support buildings for the soldiers and families.

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