Born to Run Back   December 5, 2011 Media: Born to Run Back  On
a muggy morning in October 2003, Julius Achon rose early for a
10-mile run through the streets of Lira, a dusty but populous
town in northern Uganda. A former George Mason University track
star, Achon had returned to Lira for a brief family visit while
training for his third Olympics, and his route that morning was
a fast, rough circuit that wound past rural shanties before
looping back to finish at the town's open-air bus depot.
Eighteen years into a bloody civil war, much of northern Uganda
had been ravaged by fighting, and the station was almost
deserted when Achon arrived, shortly after dawn. Pausing to
stretch, Achon glimpsed what appeared to be the bodies of nearly
a dozen children lying sprawled under one of the buses, all of
them raggedly clothed and covered in dust. Thinking he had
stumbled on corpses, Achon backed away. Then one of the bodies
got up.  It was a girl, filthy and barefoot. Approaching Achon,
she kneeled to beg for money.