| Johnny Kranich |
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Johnny Kranich joined the army in early 1980. His first duty assignment was as an 11B in Weapons Sqd A Co, 2d Bn, 75th INF RGR where he would rise to the rank of SGT and survive two aircraft crashes. The first in a C-130 in late 1981 in the desert of California and the second a UH-60 on the raid on Calavigny Barracks on the island of Grenada where he was injured and awarded the Purple heart and combat jump star. After Grenada, SGT Kranich would serve as both a RIP and PRE-Ranger instructor before he left the battalion to become a mountaineering instructor at a Ft Lewis training site called Huck Creek. In 1984 SSG Kranich would return to the Ranger community as a Ranger Instructor where he was viewed as a hard but fair lane grader and respected by a generation of new Ranger graduates. His expansion of skills continued and landed Jon in the Special Forces Qualification Course class 2-88. SSG Kranich graduated as a Weapons Sgt. He would be assigned to B Co, 3d Bn, 1st SFG as a member of ODA-183 mari-ops. This assignment would see him through several deployments to SE Asia and notably to Thailand. In 1992 the army would seize the opportunity to share his tremendous experience and assign him as the Team Sergeant for ODA-173. In 1993 Jon was reassigned to Okinawa Japan and assigned to ODA-126 MFF, attended Freefall school and is commonly referred to as a greased bowling ball during Freefall operations. Jon would retire from the Army on the early retirement option, in 1995 after a magnificent career. SFC Kranich (ret) used his skills to ensure the safety of numerous dignitaries for the US State Department. Ranger Kranich fell in Kandahar, Afghanistan in December 2006 as a member of security detail. He will be missed by all who knew him. Respectfully submitted: |
