Each year, the Tunnel to Towers Foundation selects a Freedom Alliance scholarship student — the son or daughter of a fallen or wounded military hero — to receive the prestigious Richie Sheirer Memorial Award in honor of the late Richie Sheirer.
Richie Sheirer was the Director of New York City’s Office of Emergency Management at the time of the attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001. He is credited with organizing the massive and complex Ground Zero recovery efforts. As a board member of the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation, Sheirer devoted countless hours to organizing the Tunnel to Towers 5K and supporting burn victims, wounded service members, and the children of fallen military heroes.
This year’s Richie Sheirer Memorial Award recipient is Freedom Alliance scholar, Kimo Martinez. Kimo is a senior at the University of Texas at Austin, where he will graduate in December with a degree in Aerospace Engineering. After graduation, he will enter the United States Space Force, a path inspired by his father’s distinguished military career.
In 2016, Kimo’s father, Air Force Colonel Kato Martinez, was stationed in the Netherlands. After returning home from a deployment to Afghanistan, the Martinez family planned a long-awaited trip to the United States to visit Disney World. On March 22, 2016, while traveling through the Brussels airport, tragedy struck. The Martinez family was only a few feet away from one of the suicide bombers who carried out a series of coordinated terror attacks that day.
Kimo’s mother, Gail Martinez, was killed in the explosion. Colonel Martinez and Kimo’s three sisters, Kianni, Noelani, and Kailani, survived but suffered serious, life-altering injuries. At just 12 years old, Kimo sustained third-degree burns and shrapnel wounds over 40 percent of his body. He spent weeks in a coma, months in the hospital, and countless more in rehabilitation, enduring numerous surgeries and skin grafts.
Despite the immense challenges he faced, Kimo has demonstrated exceptional courage, determination, and resilience. His strength and perseverance have carried him through years of recovery and into a promising future. Now, as he prepares to serve his country in the Space Force, Kimo honors both his mother’s memory and his father’s example of service and sacrifice.
Freedom Alliance and the Tunnel to Towers Foundation are proud to recognize Kimo’s achievements and character through the Richie Sheirer Memorial Award, celebrating a young man who truly embodies the spirit of perseverance, service, and hope.
Here is the speech Kimo gave at the award presentation:
Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen.
I am Kimo Martinez. Tonight, we are here to honor a group of brave men and women who inspired a generation of Americans with their selfless service. To the families, donors, and volunteers who showed up tonight in their memory, thank you.
On September 11, 2001, a terrorist attack struck the United States. There were heroes who selflessly put themselves into the dangers of smoke and rubble and saved countless lives. Then there were those who rose to action from that day and joined the U.S Military to fight for their country. Many of those brave heroes paid the ultimate sacrifice. May they rest in peace.
On March 22, 2016, my father, siblings, and I survived a terrorist attack at the Brussels Airport in Belgium. My father just returned from his 4th combat tour from Afghanistan, and we were on our way to Disney World to celebrate time together as a family. I was less than 2 meters from the suicide bomber when he detonated his suitcase bomb. My father received the shrapnel blast, and I took the heat blast. I sustained 3rd-degree burns and shrapnel on over 40% of my body. On that day I lost my #1 supporter, my mother. At just 12 years old, I was in a coma for two weeks, and then bedridden for four months in the ICU recovering from my burns and blast injuries.
Science will say I should not be here, but by the grace of God, I was saved.
As you see me standing in front of you today, I have regained full mobility of my legs and hands, and I have fortified my mind against the mental trauma on that day. By the end of this year, I will graduate with an Aerospace Engineering degree from the University of Texas at Austin, commission as a Second Lieutenant into the United States Space Force and be happily married to the love of my life.
The heroes we properly recognize are the ones on the front line, laying down their lives protecting those they love. Firefighter Stephen Siller, 1Sgt Russel Bell, Maj Paul Voelke, and Gail Martinez are only few that I have the honor to mention. But behind those men and women, are the people like you, men and women that have the compassion to serve those who have served them. It was people like you, who took the time out of their day to heal the broken, who helped look after a mother’s little boy become the man she saw him to be. Thank you, Freedom Alliance, the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation, and the Richard Sheirer family.
I’d like to leave you-all with this verse, Isaiah 6:8, “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. and compassion. Send me!” You all have answered that call, God bless you all as you continue to honor our nations heroes and help their families with such care and compassion.
Thank you.
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