Pair of Nebraska Legionnaires travel 432 miles on foot to honor state's heroes

In February of 2020, Nebraska Legionnaires Ken Hanel and Daryl Harrison were prepped and ready to go on an 11-day, 432-mile trek across the state in May to honor Nebraska’s 74 Medal of Honor recipients. The Nebraska Medal of Honor “Walk the Walk” also was intended to raise awareness of the campaign to rename U.S. 20 from Oregon to Massachusetts as the federal Medal of Honor Highway.

But less than a month later a global pandemic gripped the world, forcing the American Legion Post 159 members to postpone the walk.

“It was a very tough, heart-breaking decision,” Hanel said. “At first Daryl and I talked about it, we could maybe do it. But then we thought we’re going to be interacting with people, and the last thing we need to do is for us to drag COVID across the state of Nebraska.”

So the pair chose to exercise caution and move the walk to 2021. And from May 11-22, they pulled it off, traveling U.S. 20 starting at Nebraska’s western border and finishing up at Siouxland Freedom Park in South Sioux City, Neb., for a closing ceremony and celebration Each day they carried information on Nebraska Medal of Honor recipients – who each have a six-mile segment dedicated to them along the highway – to share with those who were along the route supporting their efforts.

Hanel – who serves as Post 159 vice commander, Sons of The American Legion Squadron 59 commander and department Children & Youth Committee chairman – said the pair kept the original dates in place and eased back on training until upping their daily miles last fall.

Each day Harrison and Hanel split the 36 miles into six-mile shifts, before closing by walking one mile together. They slept in motorhomes at night; Hanel took first walk at 5 a.m., which meant waking up at 3 a.m. to eat and stretch – and fire off a volley “in honor of our recipients,” Hanel said. “People often ask me about blisters and bruises. I didn’t have that because I changed my style of shoes. I found out what pants chaffed me and where they irritated me. You iron all this out in training, not on the road.”

After the walk was rescheduled, Harrison had to step away from campaigning for Nebraska department commander for 2021-2022. “What was meant to be at that time, and what became clear to me, was my dedication and my calling to do the right thing: the Medal of Honor (walk) had to be done correctly,” Harrison said, adding that one positive came out of postponing.

“That extra time … worked as a positive for us,” he said. “During that time, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society asked us if we knew that they gave grants … because I finally had time to invite (Charles) Hagemeister and (Bob) Kerrey, which are (Nebraska’s) two living Medal of Honor recipients. Within a matter of hours they’d authorized my grant for the two Medal of Honor recipients.”

Hagemeister was supposed to meet the walk at its ending point, along with fellow Medal of Honor recipient and Michigan Post 49 member James C. McCloughan. Three days before the conclusion of the walk, Harrison received a phone call that Hagemeister had passed away.

McCloughan was at the walk’s end and christened the highway as part of the ceremony. While the emotion in Harrison’s voice is evident when speaking of Hagemeister’s passing, the Legionnaire also had high praise for McCloughan. “He did a spectacular job,” Harrison said. “What an affable, wonderful, altruistic man.”

Hanel said having McCloughan attend the ceremony at the end of the walk was “the icing on the cake or the final patriotic closure to the event. He sang the national anthem. He’s just a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful man.”

A contingent of American Legion Riders from as far away as Wyoming and South Dakota rode the Nebraska Medal of Honor Highway to Siouxland Freedom Park to provide a flag line to Hanel, Harrison and their entourage as the walk concluded. It was a continuation of the support the pair received throughout the entire 432 miles.

“Every town we came to had people standing out there to greet us and cheer us on,” Harrison said. “We had a woman come zooming in on us as we were walking, and she pulled over in front of us. She jumps out of her car, and she’s got this Tupperware bowl. She presents us with a card, and she says ‘my brothers are veterans, all four of them. Eat these cookies now. They’re chocolate chip, and they’re still warm out of the oven.’”

It was the same experience for Hanel. “One town had every (school) class out there. We had seniors from nursing homes out,” he said. “Towns were lined with people. Flags all over, hanging from fire trucks. Anybody that had a mobile crane they had a huge flag flying from it. All the way through the support was wonderful.

“Anytime I thanked someone for their support, I closed with ‘it’s a great day to be an American.’ And I can’t tell you how many hundreds of times I said that.”

On Jan. 31, 2020, Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts signed paperwork renaming the 432-mile stretch of U.S. Highway 20 running through his state the “Nebraska Medal of Honor Highway.” The renaming is the continuation of an effort that began in Oregon in 2018 and has since moved into Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. Similar efforts have begun in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and Massachusetts, with the hope the designation eventually extends all the way to the end of Highway 20 in Boston.

“We wanted to honor our Medal of Honor recipients in a way that was physical and obvious. We did that,” Harrison said. “The second thing was to create enough hoopla and knowledge … to push this thing forward and get it to Massachusetts.”

Hanel said the walk was bigger than its participants. “It’s a historic event. It’s not going to happen again,” he said. “Daryl and I, we’ve talked about this and say we were honored and proud to accomplish it, to honor our (Medal of Honor) recipients. That was the goal. It was all about our recipients and bringing attention to Highway 20 in Nebraska.”

Harrison praised he and Hanel’s wives for their support throughout the pre-planning and actual walk, saying it couldn’t have been accomplished without them. And he shared what learned by completing the walk.

“Oftentimes as veterans, we have someone that will thank us, and our answer – and it’s a good answer – is ‘it was my honor.’ Through this ‘Walk the Walk’, through the patriots that I met, through the other Legionnaires that I met, through veterans I met on the highway that had to stop and cry with me, I learned what ‘it’s my honor’ means. It was powerful from one end of this state to the other.”