On a warm September morning, dozens of people, including many from the Bradwell Institute JROTC, turned out for the Travis Manion Foundation’s annual 9/11 Heroes Run at Bryant Commons.

Trudging along the route under the Spanish moss and around the tract’s ponds was veteran Hinesville Fire Department firefighter Alex Mason, complete in full turnout gear.

On his oxygen tank was a picture of Keith Roma, whom Mason called “the forgotten firefighter.”

“Eyewitnesses credited him with saving over 200 lives,” Mason said.

On the morning of 9/11, after the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers were struck by hijacked airliners, Roma called his father, a former New York Police Department officer, Mason said.

“Keith called his dad and told his dad what had happened,” Mason said. “The last words he spoke to his dad were, ‘I’ll meet you there.’ He never saw his son again.”

The younger Roma’s remains were found threeand a-half months after the attacks, on Christmas Eve 2001. He was found alongside the remains of nine others in the rubble.

The Fire Department of New York lists 343 members of its service who were killed in the World Trade Center attacks on 9/11. Roma, a member of the New York Fire Patrol, is not listed among those 343. The FDNY issued an official declaration of death and held a funeral Mass for Roma.

“But he is not recognized as one of the 343,” Mason said. “It’s a powerful story.” Mason has been with the HFD for 21 years and was hired three months before the 9/11 attacks. He had been in the fire service several years prior to that, he said.

“This is where I started my career, and this is where I’ll finish it,” he said.

As for running the course in full turnout gear, he didn’t consider that a burden at all.

“This is not an even of the fraction of the sacrifice those men and women made,” he said.