Wheaton family calls for worldwide resolve to fight piracy

The family of a Wheaton native who was aboard an American freighter that was attacked by Somali pirates while carrying humanitarian aid says something must be done to discourage the targeting of commercial ships.

"This is an ongoing problem that has pretty much been ignored and bought off. It's going to get worse and worse and worse," said Michael Urbik, whose 26-year-old son, Thomas Urbik, was on the Liberty Sun Tuesday when pirates fired grenades and automatic weapons at the vessel.

Thomas Urbik e-mailed his family about the attack after he and roughly 20 other crew members successfully blockaded themselves inside the Liberty Sun's engine room.

That e-mail, which his mother saw Tuesday afternoon, was titled, "I love you all." It read: "We are under attack by pirates, we are being hit by rockets. Also bullets. We are barricaded in the engine room and so far no one is hurt. A rocket penetrated the bulkhead but the hole is small. Small fire too but put out. Navy is on the way and helos and ships are coming. I'll try to send you another message soon. Got to go now. I love you mom and dad and all my brothers and family."

But then, minutes later, Katy Urbik read a second e-mail from her son that said he was "safe and well" and that a U.S. Navy ship was escorting the Liberty Sun. The freighter, which sustained some damage, was expected to arrive Wednesday at Mombasa, Kenya.

"Ultimately, the one who saved Tom was God," said Katy Urbik, who agrees there has to be "a worldwide resolve" to stop piracy.

Michael Urbik said he believes the past policies of companies paying ransoms to pirates who seize their ships are "nuts."

"You are just going to encourage it," he said. "The more impoverished a country becomes, the more likely they are to look for these outlets.

"It's becoming a growing business. As they get more resources, obviously, the equipment will improve and so will the weapons."

The Urbiks said Wednesday they never dreamed of the dangers Thomas would face as a marine engineer. The Batavia resident helps maintain mechanical equipment on ships.

After growing up in Wheaton, Thomas Urbik attended a Catholic boarding school in Pennsylvania and considered going into the priesthood. But his parents say his love of mechanics (one of his hobbies is working on high-performance cars) and the sea drew him to attend Texas A&M University's Maritime Academy.

His first job after graduation was serving on another Liberty Maritime-owned ship that delivered grain to Pakistan.

"So he started off right away in the soup," Michael Urbik said.

While Katy Urbik initially didn't expect international piracy to be one of the dangers the second-oldest of her seven sons would face, she says she now knows that threat is real.

And unlike the romanticized version of pirates in movies, the modern-day pirates roaming Somali waters are nothing more than "terrorists," the Urbiks say.

"'Pirate' is kind of a quaint word," Katy Urbik said. "It conjures up images of an eye patch and parrot on the shoulder. But when you attack a ship like that, you are a terrorist."

Katy Urbik said fears over her son's safety were heightened Monday when pirates vowed vengeance for colleagues slain during the rescue of a hijacked American sea captain, Richard Phillips of the Maersk Alabama.

"Monday was a bad, bad day for me," she said. "Because there was about a 48-hour window of time before I had heard from him - and that was all during the threats to kill Americans."

But early Tuesday morning, she "felt relatively relieved" when her son informed her the Liberty Sun was reporting its position to the Navy every six hours.

"They had been practicing drills to get down into the engine room," she said. "They had sealed off all of the doorways to get below. It looked like they had everything under control; they were about 24 hours away from pulling into their port."

Then she got the e-mail that confirmed her worst fears.

"I kept waiting for it to say 'Just kidding ... I am really safe in port' or something like that," she said. "But then I realized it wasn't a joke. It was really happening."

While the follow-up e-mail arrived minutes later, it was roughly six hours between the time the attack was reported and the arrival of the USS Bainbridge - the destroyer that assisted during the Maersk Alabama rescue.

By the time the Bainbridge arrived, the pirates had left and there were no injuries. Even though crew members barricaded themselves in the engine room, they were still able to operate the ship and steer it with the help of a compass and GPS system.

Despite the e-mail updates, Katy Urbik said she was eager to get a phone call from her son.

"We have e-mailed six different times telling him to call us," she said. "I don't care what it costs for a satellite call."

While there's plenty of topics she expects her son to talk about, she doesn't anticipate any will involve rethinking his career choice.

"I do think he will be a lot more selective about the jobs he takes," she said. "You are not forced to take a job when they post it on the board. You are free to take it or leave it."