On Oct. 16, fifteen special tactics Airmen from Air Force Special Operations Command and two from Air Combat Command embarked on an 812-mile march from Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, to Hurlburt Field, Fla., to memorialize 17 Airmen killed in action.

The memorial march, named after Staff Sgt. Tim Davis, who was killed in 2009 by an improvised explosive device, takes place every year a special tactics Airman is lost. This year’s march honored three Airmen from the 24th Special Tactics Squadron at Pope Field, N.C. who died in a CH-47 Chinook helicopter crash in Afghanistan on Aug. 6.

During the march, each pararescuemen and combat controller carry a 50-pound ruck sack and a baton engraved with the name of a fallen Airman.

“I just hope that, whether the families are involved in this or not, the message gets to them some way that their loved one, their son, their husband, their brother, whatever he was, is not forgotten,” said Senior Airman Jordan Dehlbom, one of the marchers who is a pararescueman with the 48th Rescue Squadron at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz. “He is always remembered and every day somebody who worked with him, that knew him and even people who didn’t know him, talk about him. He lives on through that memory.”

The marchers traveled through Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. All along the route, they were greeted with tremendous support from school children, community members, veterans, police and firemen.

The marchers made it to Hurlburt Field on Oct. 26, where they were greeted by more than 300 family members, friends and comrades who walked the last 4.6 miles of the march with the special tactics Airmen.