HANAU, Germany — The Hanau military community mourned two soldiers Wednesday and Thursday who both died in a motorcycle wreck last week on a highway near Büdingen, Germany.

Military police officials said Sgt. Dale L. Neal, 33, of Company D, 2nd Battalion, 501st Aviation Regiment and Staff Sgt. Darnell D. Wiggins, 31, of Headquarters and Headquarters Detachment, 565th Engineer Battalion, were traveling at a high rate of speed when they were killed Friday. They died instantly when they struck a guardrail.

A memorial for Neal, the driver and owner of the motorcycle, was held at the Fliegerhorst Casern Chapel Wednesday.

Neal’s wife, Gayle, broke out in tears as his battalion commander recalled approving the sergeant’s application to become an Army recruiter. When Lt. Col. Robert Baer asked Neal why he wanted the duty, Neal did not offer the typical reply that it was a good career move, Baer said.

“After 12 months in South Korea and 15 months in Iraq, he just wanted to be with his family,” Baer said.

They were to move to Ohio on June 1.

During the final roll call, a tradition of calling out the name of the dead at military memorial services, Neal’s 8-year-old son, Devlen, asked, “What’s happening?”

After the ceremony, Staff Sgt. Paul Arends explained that Neal researched buying his first motorcycle on the Internet while in Iraq. He bought a purple Harley Davidson Buell and unpacked it when he returned to Germany in July 2004, Arends said.

Sgt. Amanda Loveless, who said Neal was like a brother to her, said his friends gave him a hard time about buying a purple sport motorcycle.

Neal and Wiggins were riding on the purple Harley the night they died.

During Wiggins’ memorial service on Thursday, attendants cried together and laughed together during the Pioneer Casern Chapel ceremony.

The service had to begin without the presence of Wiggins’ immediate family. Then, 45 minutes later, after the last of the 21-gun salute rang out, a fragile woman worked her way through the crowd.

Crippled with grief, Wiggins’s wife, Chaka, fell into the arms of friends and family and sobbed. Their sons, DeQuan and DeKarri, did not make it to the service.

Community members said their final farewells to a comrade who was known for his Army infantry skills and his heart of gold in life.

Wiggins’s friends Sgt. Roxane CruzCortez and Spc. Felix Thurman said the operations sergeant worked hard and played hard. They both expressed their love for their friend.

Then the gathering was led through a tearful version of “Amazing Grace.”

Lt. Col. Jose Ramos, the HHD commander, choked up while telling some of his favorite stories about his soldier.

“That rock is getting pretty thick in my throat,” he said.