Answering the call: Dike native Crew featured in Navy recruiting video

Five years ago, Tyler Crew found himself yearning for adventure—specifically, something more than a college degree and a run of the mill desk job. So he did something bold: the 20-year-old walked into the Navy recruitment office in Waterloo, quit school at UNI and signed his enlistment papers on Veterans Day.
           
“He came back one day, and he said to me, ‘Mom, college is your dream and not mine, and I joined the Navy today,’” his mother said, mimicking her gasp when he delivered the news.
 
Tyler’s father and paternal grandfather are both veterans, but the decision to sign up was entirely his own.
 
“I’m actually not going to lie to you. It didn’t even factor (in) at all. They never pressured me and said ‘Hey, have you thought about it?’ And they hardly bring it up. They’re very silent (and) very professional,” Tyler said. “I always thought that was kind of funny that they never pressed, and yet here I am anyway.”
           
Crew, who graduated from Dike-New Hartford High School in 2011, is the son of Valerie Crew of Dike and Christopher Crew of Grundy Center. He now serves as a Petty Officer Second Class Damage Controlman (DC2)—essentially, a fireman for the Navy—and has completed two deployments that took him around the globe to locations across Europe and off the coast of the Middle East in the Arabian Sea: Turkey, Greece, Bahrain, Dubai, Naples, Marseilles and London, to name a few. It’s quite the contrast from his first firefighting experience as a volunteer with the force in Dike.
 
His travels have also taught Crew a larger lesson: despite what you may hear, read and be taught to think, nations and the people who comprise them around the globe are far more alike than they are different. 
 
Read the full story in this week's Grundy Register. Subscribe by calling (319) 824-6958 or clicking here.