With the Marianas Visitors Authority announcing that the Saipan Marathon will be held on March 9, 2024, the islands’ running community was understandably excited with the return of an old favorite.
Thomas “Tom” Ortman and his wife Marilyn are visiting Saipan this week to fulfill a lifelong dream of visiting the place where his father, a World War II veteran, crawled from foxhole to foxhole and saw his fellow Marines shredded to pieces by Japanese mortar.