Excerpts from the ChicagoTribune.com:

About three years ago, Chuck Wehrli said he started hearing the conspiracy theories. The retired Naperville Fire Department captain responded to New York City in the days after the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01. Since then, each fall he talks to students at Neuqua Valley High School about his experiences among the detritus of the World Trade Center.

Each year, fewer kids remembered the day airplanes flew into the twin towers. As such, Wehrli said he hears more and more voices each year questioning whether two passenger airplanes really did fly into the Manhattan towers. This September, the students he spoke to were all of one year old when the attacks happened.

Wehrli responded as a member of a search and rescue team out of Missouri. So far, he hasn’t suffered side effects from inhaling dust that, in following years, caused serious health problems for many.

He remembered helping to pull a body from the wreckage that turned out to be a New York firefighter who gave him a patch off his hat seven years earlier.

Harder than pulling out bodies, was seeing faces of the firefighters that survived.

He makes sure to mention Dan Shanower in his presentation. The Naperville Central graduate died when a passenger jet hit the Pentagon on the same day as the attacks on the twin towers. A friend of Wehrli’s and Fairfax County firefighters found Shanower’s body in Washington D.C.

thanks Dan

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