Fallen Illinois Medic/Soldier to be Buried with Honors
Military honors and tributes from local paramedics will accompany the burial Friday of Sgt. Steven Mennemeyer of Granite City.
Aug. 17--GRANITE CITY -- Military honors and tributes from local paramedics will accompany the burial Friday of Sgt. Steven Mennemeyer of Granite City.
Mennemeyer, 26, died in Iraq on Aug. 8. A Blackhawk helicopter carrying Mennemeyer an another air medic crashed into a lake in Rubtbah, west of Baghdad.
Mennemeyer was on his second duty tour in Iraq since 2002. He joined the U.S. Army Reserves immediately after graduation from Granite City High School in 1998.
He briefly coached the boys' basketball team at St. Elizabeth School in Granite City.
"All the kids really liked him," said Kathy Lickenbrock, school secretary whose son was on Mennemeyer's team.
Until he went on active duty, Mennemeyer worked as a paramedic at Abbot Ambulance in Belleville. Abbot on Friday planned to send a caravan of three ambulances to accompany Mennemeyer's relatives to Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, said Larry Stone, Abbot's vice president of administration.
A military plane was expected to bring Mennemeyer's body from Dover Air Force Base in Maryland at about 6 p.m. today.
Abbott ambulances will be part of the funeral procession Friday from St. Elizabeth Catholic Church in Granite City to Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in St. Louis.
Paramedics from the Mehlville, Mo., Fire Department will have an American flag flying from a ladder truck at the cemetery entrance, Stone said.
Granite City Mayor Ed Hagnauer said police officers have offered to serve as escorts or for other assistance with the funeral and burial.
"However they want it, we've offered our services," Hagnauer said.
The family will receive friends from 4 to 6 p.m. today at Irwin Chapel, 3960 Maryville Road in Granite City. A funeral Mass is scheduled for Mennemeyer at 10 a.m. Friday at St. Elizabeth.
Mennemeyer is the third Granite City soldier killed since the U.S. invaded Iraq and Afghanistan in 2002. He is the ninth in the metro-east.
Granite City's downtown memorial park, which has monuments with the names of those killed in previous wars, does not yet have a monument for soldiers killed in Iraq, said David Williams, director of the Granite City Park District.
Contact Jayne Matthews at or 345-7822 ext. 25.
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