Model A Is Rolling Memorial
Thursday 3 July 2008 at 09:55
by POW/MIA Chairman
News Dispatch - Michigan City, IN, USA7/3/2008 9:53:00 AM
Model A Is Rolling Memorial
Gregg Hanke Returns To His Hometown To Display His Street Rod, A Tribute To City Soldiers Who Died In Vietnam
Dave Hawk
The News-Dispatch
MICHIGAN CITY - Former Michigan City resident Gregg Hanke has built a street rod as a memorial to the 32 Michigan City soldiers who died in the Vietnam War.
The 1929 full-fendered Model A Ford roadster also serves as a memorial to Hanke's late wife, Greta, who inspired him to build the hot rod, but never got a chance to ride in it when she died Feb. 20 of this year. He completed the car on Easter Sunday.
Hanke plans to drive the car in the Summer Festival Parade Sunday.
Hanke said his wife was a patriotic person who was especially concerned about soldiers' issues because two grandsons, by a previous marriage, were serving in the war in Iraq.
Gregg and Greta reconstructed the Model A, starting with the frame, replacing the engine with a 320 horsepower, 350 cubic inch Chevrolet, adding a 350 Turbo transmission and a 1957 Chevrolet rear-end.
The body is all steel, not a fiberglass replica, and he and Greta did all the work except for the paint and the top.
The paint features POW-MIA emblems on each door and the rear. Also across the back of the car are the names of 22 of the 32 Michigan City soldiers killed in Vietnam. Hanke said he is trying to figure out where to put the 10 other names.
The main reason he drives and displays the car is "awareness," he said. "I've had people ask 'What does POW-MIA mean?'" he said. "I explain it stands for Prisoners of War, Missing in Action." Hanke tells them that including World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam, and Iraq, a total of 87,000 servicemen and women remain missing in action, most of them from World War II, but including 8,000 in Korea and some 1,800 from the Vietnam War.
Now more soldiers are becoming missing in action in Iraq, and "before we leave we need to bring them back," he said.
Hanke said he has been an advocate for soldiers ever since he served in the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War, assigned to Air Force headquarters and the 632nd Combat Support Group, which flew C-47 "Spooky" gunships. Hanke didn't fly, but at the base, "We got shot at a lot."
After the war he became active in researching all the local soldiers who died in Vietnam, including friends and acquaintances from Elston High School, from which he graduated in 1966, a year that remains memorable as the year Elston won the state basketball tournament.
Hanke was among local veterans who protested and blocked efforts to move the Danny Bruce Memorial in Washington Park in the 1970s. The name of Bruce, who posthumously was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, has a special place on the back of Hanke's Model A.
Hanke is a member of American Legion Skwiat Post 37, Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2536 and The Wall Gang, made up of Vietnam veterans.
Although he moved to the Largo, Fla., area in 1994, after running his company, the Building Block Construction Co., he remains connected to Michigan City, and rode with The Wall Gang to Washington, D.C., on the annual Memorial Day run in 2003. Next year he plans to drive the Model A to that "Rolling Thunder" observance.
Hanke trailered the car to Michigan City for the Fourth of July weekend, stopping in Evansville for a car show last Saturday, where he took the Best of Show trophy.
He also has used the car at veterans' events in Florida, such as a cancer walk and blood drives, and prominent in his scrap book is a photo of himself with the car and Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who is from the same area.
Hanke, 61, formerly served on the board of Michigan City Area Schools, and his father, Ken Hanke, 91, who splits time between Michigan City and Florida, formerly was a member of the City Council here. Gregg's son, Eric, has four sons, and the family has loaded four generations into the Model A, two in front and two in the rumble seat, for jaunts around Michigan City.
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