Iowa City Veterans Affairs leader will share 9/11 experiences at commemorative event

Heath Streck, fresh off an active duty military assignment in Germany, was in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 11, 2001. He’d toured the Pentagon the day before, and was scheduled to travel home to Iowa with his family.

Streck’s plans changed — and his commitment to his country and community was cemented — when terrorists crashed planes into the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and a field in Pennsylvania, killing nearly 3,000 people.

Streck, now the associate director for operations at Veterans Affairs Iowa City Healthcare, will speak at an event hosted by University of Iowa’s Young Americans for Freedom on Wednesday. His address will begin at 6 p.m. at Hubbard Park, 125 N. Madison St., Iowa City.

“The number one thing is to honor those who died because of it,” Streck said. “They gave their lives. The folks in those towers weren’t necessarily military or first responders — some were — but they gave their lives, and then the country reacted.”

Also as part of the commemoration, Iowa Young Americans for Freedom will set up 2,977 American flags — one for each person who died in the attacks — at Hubbard Park on Wednesday.

Streck was headed home to Iowa

In 2001, Streck had recently returned from military service in Germany and was moving back to Ankeny with his family, where he was going to begin service with the Iowa National Guard.

On the day of the attacks, he was in Washington, D.C. He had been given a tour of the National Guard Bureau at the Pentagon the day before and was planning to fly back to Iowa that day.

He first heard that something had happened at the Pentagon, and — having seen some construction happening at the building the day before — he thought that maybe someone had hit a pipeline and caused a small explosion. As they learned details of what had happened, Streck and his fellow National Guard officers relayed information to Iowa National Guard officials in Iowa.

They eventually drove 22 hours in a rental car to Chicago, where they were picked up by the Iowa National Guard and made the rest of the trip home to Ankeny.

After that day, Streck said his work with the Iowa National Guard was constant, and he took almost no days off for three years.

“It reinstilled my commitment to the U.S. military, and in this case, specifically, the Iowa National Guard, watching my fellow warriors go overseas and come back. We wished them farewell, and we welcomed them back,” Streck said.

Speech will share lasting impact of 9/11

Streck said he plans to speak Wednesday about the lasting impact the events of that day had on him and his family. It’s an example of the ways people across the country were impacted in small and large ways.

“I want to help people understand the significance of this type of event and what it can do if you’re not prepared for it, if you’re not involved in your community, and if your country wasn’t prepared to react to something like this, what could happen,” Streck said.

“Fortunately, we were. We banded together as a country. Our armed forces did what they needed to do. Our community responders did what they needed to do. In a relatively short time of history, we got back to the norm.”

Streck said he hopes that Wednesday evening’s attendees can walk away with a drive to become more involved in their communities and to work together to prepare to respond to emergencies of all kinds.

“That is why we do what we do, to protect the loved ones, the country, what we have here in the United States,” Streck said.

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