Wheaton friends taking motorcyle trip to Sept. 11 memorials
When terrorists flew two airplanes into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, Mark Hannan looked on helplessly from the other side of the world.
The Wheaton resident, stranded in Australia for several days, did not realize immediately how close to home the tragedy would strike.
When Internet messages asked about the whereabouts of a former high school basketball teammate, however, Hannan knew the attack had hit home. The former teammate worked in one of the buildings and died that morning.
That did not stop the then-part-time Wheaton police officer from volunteering to help sift through the twin towers' rubble at a nearby landfill.
“It was very upsetting but also very fulfilling,” said Hannan, a retired drug enforcement agent in Chicago and New York. “We were helping families and the FBI try to get to the bottom of things and help them solve what they were still trying to figure out.”
As the 10th anniversary of that day approaches, Hannan put together a motorcycle ride with three friends that will take them to lower Manhattan, ground zero of the attacks. Along the way, the four friends will stop at Sept. 11 memorials in Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., and visit some of the victims' families they have come to know since that time.
The four motorcycle enthusiasts, who all come from a law enforcement background, will leave on the 2,000-mile journey on Sept. 7.
“I would like to see (the families) again and to tell them their sacrifice will never be forgotten,” Hannan said.
When Hannan first introduced the idea, his friends quickly jumped on board. Homer Markhart, a friend who lives in Cape Girardeau, Mo., will meet Hannan, Curt Kiebles and Wayne Schricker in Champaign on Sept. 7.
The itinerary has the group on the road for a week and winds through several states.
When Wheaton resident Kevin Oratowski died in Afghanistan on Aug. 18, 2010, Kiebles said it hurt badly because Oratowski had been a family friend.
He said seeing him in a casket served as an unwanted reminder because he remembered the 23-year-old U.S. Marine saying he wanted to join the military because of the Sept. 11 attacks.
“I don't think I ever lost a spark for what happened but it renewed the feeling that we have to do something so people don't forget,” said Kiebles, an auxiliary Wheaton police officer. “It's going to be a big journey.”
Schricker, a former Elmwood Park police officer who spent four years in the U.S. Navy, said the journey will honor the fallen.
He said he was at Arrowhead Golf Course when he heard of the attacks. One of the things he remembers most is feeling a renewed sense of patriotism and wanting to help in any way he could.
“When you're a police officer, fireman, military, it's a family,” he said. “When you see those firemen, policemen going in there, knowing they are going to die ... you get that feeling that you want to do that for somebody.”