Dennis Craig Grabeel
Grabeel
Dennis Craig
VA
Cold War; Persian Gulf War, 1991
Navy
Atlantic Fleet Weapons Range; Fleet Composite Squadron 8 (VC 8)
Commander
Puerto Rico; Little Creek, Virginia
Unknown
Veteran
"We were out there picking people up off houses, and picking people up out at sea, hanging on tree trunks." (Video Interview, 18:20)
Craig Grabeel was a pilot in the Navy whose service did not take him into combat, but he was hardly immune from danger. He served in a squadron which did Search and Rescue missions, including two which involved hurricane victims. After 6 years on active duty and another 16 in the Reserves, Grabeel worked for the Navy in a civilian capacity, reformulating policy approaches in the draw-downs after the Cold War ended.
Dennis Craig Grabeel [2006]
Wings of War
Portrait of Dennis Grabeel in uniform
ca.1990
Enlisting in the Navy flight program out of the University of Virginia; his father and father-in-law were Army, but the Navy pursued him; recalls a picture in a book from his childhood: a Navy plane that had just taken off from a carrier.
First day in training; motley crew of recruits; drill instructors "stripping you down to your Social Security number" and then building you up to what they want; putting pressure on you, and if you couldn't stand it, "they didn't want you in their airplanes;" he saw it as a game of survival and didn't take the abuse personally.
Incident during flight training: flying with Marine major in the back seat; pretending to stall and then add full power; if you don't add right rudder, plane will roll on you; his did, but he recovered, and instructor allowed him to make the adjustment; training kicks in and overrides any emotional reaction.
First duties with Naval Shore Bombardment; based in Puerto Rico serving as a Division Officer for the Atlantic Fleet Weapons Range; out on islands off the coast to brief and train Navy and Marine Corps squadrons on range rules; scoring the squadrons' performance.
Transferred to Fleet Composite Squadron 8 (VC 8), squadron supported the fleet during war games; squadron duties: P-2 aircraft would drop the drone targets (unmanned targets); A-4 jet sky hawks would tow banners for them to shoot at; H-3 helicopters would pick up the drones as they ran out of fuel and landed in the ocean, flying them back; most rewarding work was Search and Rescue; involved with aftermath of two hurricanes; three helicopters up after Eloise in 1975.
Met his future wife when they were both in service, but she was enlisted and he was officer; fraternization was forbidden; he got out of active duty and joined the Reserves; she joined the Reserves, too in 1980, the year they were married.
Reserve duties: involved in Naval Control of Shipping; did one two-week active duty stint once a year; when he worked for Department of the Navy as a civilian, traveled all over the world; was instructor in Senior Leaders Seminar in Total Quality Leadership; did some strategic planning with Commands and helped redefine their vision and mission in the wake of the Cold War.
Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress
https://memory.loc.gov/diglib/vhp/story/loc.natlib.afc2001001.43436/
DLC-AFC
2023-07-24
loc.natlib.afc2001001.43436