★★★ Memorial Monday ★★★
ENS Gregory McMichael, USN '86 was lost on April 15, 1987 when the T-34C he was piloting crashed during his "safe-for-solo" flight check near Chumuckla, Florida. His instructor was also killed. They were members of Training Squadron (VT) 2.
An '87 alumni remembered Greg: "One [Naval Academy Preparatory School] platoon-mate who stood out was Greg. Greg was a short, stocky, powerfully-built black dude straight outta Brooklyn, NY (he graduated from the renowned Erasmus Hall High School in Flatbush, where he was a star wrestler). At that point in my life, I'd never known anyone who was actually from New York (much less Brooklyn), and as such I always assumed (misguidedly) that anyone from there must be a gang member or some sort of badass. Greg WAS a badass, but in a different way. He carried himself with calm dignity and good humor, and while he wasn't an academic genius per se, he had an innate sense of intelligence that surpassed even the smartest students there. …
"Greg probably never knew how much I looked up to him - shoot, nobody talked about stuff like that, especially in their late teens and twenties; it would have seemed sort of weird. And besides, back then, it didn't need to be said - we were young, and were going to live forever, so there was plenty of time for that later. And now, it's far too late to tell him so. To me, he's not just a name on a plaque on a wall, but someone I knew and admired, and will always remember."
A company-mate added: "An absolute class act, Greg was both comical and intense in a unique mix that just worked. As someone who was eternally at the bottom of the PE classes, I was able to enjoy being able to do one (and only one!) sport better than Greg – swimming. Greg swam like a helicopter flies – by beating the water into submission. But, like everything else in his life, he overcame that, too."
To Honor! ⚓
https://usnamemorialhall.org/index.php/GREGORY_MCMICHAEL,_ENS,_USN