Sergeant First Class Daniel B. Crabtree was born on November 13, 1974, and grew up in Hartville, Ohio. Daniel was a husband, a father, a friend, a brother and a son. Family and friends describe him as determined, dedicated and a trusted confidant, and he had a lifelong passion for the military, police work and Star Wars.
Daniel entered military service with the Army Reserve in 1992 and joined the Ohio Army National Guard in 1993 as an administrative specialist. He later retrained as a military policeman and served with the 135th Military Police Company in Brook Park. At the same time he built a career in law enforcement, first as a police officer in his hometown of Hartville and then with the Cuyahoga Falls Police Department, where he served as a sniper on the department’s SWAT team and as a member of its honor guard.
In March 2002 Daniel joined the 19th Special Forces Group (Airborne). Preparing for the Special Forces Qualification Course while working night shifts, he would come off duty in the morning, strap a 70-pound rucksack to his back and start running. He earned his Green Beret at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in May 2004 and became a Special Forces weapons sergeant with Company B, 2nd Battalion, 19th Special Forces Group (Airborne) in Columbus. His teammates still laugh about his first jump with the unit, when he landed badly, broke his leg and lay on the drop zone laughing at the friend who rushed to help him. They remember him above all for his patience and kindness. A young soldier who never made it to the qualification course wrote that Daniel always stopped to answer his questions, “no matter how stupid they were. That was Dan.” To that young soldier, Daniel embodied everything a Special Forces soldier should be.
Daniel deployed to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom with the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force–Arabian Peninsula. His detachment’s mission was to train the Al Kut SWAT unit, an Iraqi police force. As lead trainer, Daniel drew on his own police and SWAT experience to design and teach a curriculum in advanced marksmanship, offensive and defensive driving and urban assault. He accompanied the unit on more than 35 real-world missions as a combat advisor, including six large-scale air assault operations, which resulted in the capture of more than 100 known insurgents. “They were feared by the insurgency because they were so effective,” a teammate said, “and that was due, in large part, to his training.”
On June 8, 2006, a roadside bomb exploded beside Daniel’s vehicle during a combat patrol near Al Kut. He was on his way to a meeting to help a village threatened by the insurgency. He was 31 years old. “He died doing what he liked to do,” his teammate said. Daniel was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star Medal, the Purple Heart, the Meritorious Service Medal and the Combat Infantryman Badge. His other decorations include the Army Achievement Medal, the Army Reserve Component Achievement Medal, the Iraq Campaign Medal, the Humanitarian Service Medal, the Parachutist Badge and the Special Forces Tab.
Hundreds of people came to honor Daniel at his funeral in Green, Ohio, where a dozen of his Special Forces brothers stood watch in dress uniform. Cuyahoga Falls continues to remember him; the city named an honorary boulevard for him, and its SWAT team carries his name on a dedicated vehicle. He is survived by his wife, Kathy; his daughter, Mallory; and his parents, Ronald and Judy Ann Crabtree.
In Iraq, SFC Crabtree developed and implemented a comprehensive training curriculum for the Iraqi SWAT volunteers, including advanced marksmanship and urban assault training.
19th Special Forces Group (Airborne)
Sources
- National Guard Bureau: Special Forces Soldiers reflect on fallen Ohio Guard comrade (Aug. 8, 2006)
- Green Beret Foundation: Daniel B. Crabtree
- City of Cuyahoga Falls: Mayor Walters to honor the life and service of Daniel Crabtree with honorary boulevard
- City of Cuyahoga Falls Police: Special Operations
- Family-provided records on file with MVF: Daniel Crabtree bio and USASFC release
