Monroe Village Board renames street in honor of Gregg Wenzel

| 22 Feb 2012 | 10:14

The 1987 Monroe-Woodbury graduate was a CIA operative killed in Ethiopia in 2003, By Bill Lemanski Monroe - The Monroe Village Board recognized former Monroe resident and fallen CIA officer Gregg Wenzel this week by naming a street in his honor: Cheese Cock Drive was changed to Gregg Wenzel Drive. In reading the proclamation, Mayor John Karl III said: “The Village of Monroe recognizes this truly great citizen by renaming a road in this community in his honor.” Wenzel, a 1987 graduate of Monroe-Woodbury High School was a CIA operative killed in Ethiopia in 2003. According to his father, Mitchell Wenzel, the circumstances surrounding his death were murky. Wenzel was not a U.S. State Department diplomat as has been claimed but he was a CIA spy killed in a car crash. He was a member of the first clandestine service training class to graduate after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. In July 2003, Gregg Wenzel was driving with “a high-ranking Ethiopian official” when his car was hit head-on by an Ethiopian driver working for the United Nations Industrial Development Organization and driving a UN vehicle. The Ethiopian official with Wenzel was also killed. The driver was convicted but it’s not known if he served jail time. “Gregg was a spy, on a clandestine mission gathering intelligence when he was killed,” said Wenzel. “He basically was operating on the ‘dark side,’ in the shadows. He had disguises and aliases. He jumped from planes. He learned the Ethiopian language and was studying Arabic Sometimes he would tell us, ‘I won’t be in touch with you for days.’ There were things he didn’t want us to know for our own protection.” The Wenzels initially had difficulty with the CIA uncovering their son’s name. They had a wrongful death claim against UNIDO and its insurer, AIG, who refused to settle. For the protection of other operatives working in the area and the pending wrongful death claim, the CIA refused to uncover Gregg’s name. However, following a withdrawal of the claim and with the help of President George W. Bush’s office, the CIA relented and uncovered Gregg Wenzel’s name. At a memorial service for fallen agents at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, Director Leon E. Panetta made his CIA affiliation public in June, 2009: “At age 33, a promising young officer - a leader and friend to so many - was taken from us. We find some measure of solace in knowing that Gregg achieved what he set out to do: He lived for a purpose greater than himself. Like his 81st star on this wall, that lesson remains with us always” said Panetta. A quote on the headquarters museum wall states: “We are the nation’s first line of defense. We go where others cannot go, and accomplish what others cannot accomplish.” Panetta commented, “They operate on the dark side, in the shadow.” Wenzel said his son, Gregg, “was an individual who lived for something beyond himself.”

Scholarship
In honor of their son, the Wenzel family established the Gregg David Wenzel Scholarship Fund enabling scholarships for children to attend Chabad of Orange County Hebrew School. To learn more about the scholarship fund, and to view a letter from President Barack Obama to the Wenzel family sent earlier this month, visit www.ChabadOrange.com/wenzel.