Navy Seal Lt. Michael Murphy Run Around the Lake race in Lake Ronkonkoma expected to draw 3,400 participants Saturday

Twenty years to the day after Navy SEAL Michael Murphy, of Patchogue, was killed in a firefight in Afghanistan, the Saturday Lake Ronkonkoma race that bears his name is expected to draw more than 3,400 participants and raise more than $100,000 for area charities.

"This is the anniversary of Operation Red Wings, the day that Michael gave his life and all those men died," said Dr. Louis Scotti, race director for the Lt. Michael P. Murphy Run Around the Lake. Murphy’s father, Dan Murphy, is expected to speak at the race, and the LT Michael Murphy Division of Sea Cadets Corps, a Navy youth development program, is scheduled to attend.

The race offers three events: a 13.1-mile half-marathon, a 4-mile run-walk and a fun run of a few hundred yards. The longer events draw a mix of casual and serious runners, some of whom ran the 4-mile event in as little as 21 minutes, Scotti said. Some will run carrying weighted rucksacks and do a program of pull-ups, sit-ups and push-ups, an event sponsored by the 106th Rescue Wing of the Air National Guard of Westhampton Beach.

Rotary Club of the Ronkonkomas, the event organizer, donates the money raised through sponsorships and entry to a variety of causes. About two-thirds of the proceeds go to veterans’ causes including the Murphy Memorial Scholarship Foundation and General Needs, an East Northport nonprofit that donates clothing and toiletries to veterans in shelters.

Red Wings, in which 19 service members were killed, was among the most disastrous U.S. military operations of the Afghanistan War and represented the single largest loss of life for the Navy’s Special Warfare Command since World War II, according to a Navy summary of the action.

Murphy, 29, led a four-man SEAL team on June 28, 2005, that was spotted while scouting a target in the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan. They were attacked by more than 50 enemy fighters. The SEALs fled down a mountainside, where Murphy left cover to make a distress call. He got shot, completed the call, and resumed fighting.

Enemy fighters shot down a Chinook helicopter carrying a quick reaction force sent to rescue the SEALs, killing all 16 men aboard. Three of the four SEALs on the ground, including Murphy, were killed. He was posthumously awarded the Navy’s Medal of Honor. 

On Thursday at West Sayville’s LT Michael P. Murphy SEAL Museum, Richard Ladson, 69, visiting from Columbia, South Carolina, said he hoped events like the race would bring attention to "the sacrifices of these young men, because they’re stellar Americans."

Michael Raimondo, a Lake Grove lawyer whose firm has sponsored the race for three years, said that he started participating after he heard Murphy’s story. He came back because it was "fun and it seems to be growing every year. It’s a great community event. You have thousands of people showing up and even those who don’t run have been coming."

He plans to run in a group of 12 family members and friends. "We’re not out to break any records," though he has begun a program of light training runs, he said.