Iraq’s Ambassador to the United States, Lukman Faily, is from a country splintered almost daily by sectarian terrorism. Car bombs, kidnappings, and horrific acts of violence continue to plague an Iraq trying to recover and rebuild after more than a decade of armed upheaval. Faily was serving as his country’s ambassador in Tokyo last year when Martin Richard, Krystle Campbell, and Lingzi Lu were killed and hundreds were injured in the Boston Marathon bombings. The pictures of desperate faces and devastation were familiar to him.

When Faily was told last summer he would be posted to Washington, he told himself he would run in the 2014 Boston Marathon.

“This is a way for me to say ‘thank you’ to our American friends,” says Faily.