As a U.S. Army veteran and son of a retired U.S. Army major, Joe Dendas holds deep admiration and respect for those who serve in the nation’s military.

This is one of many reasons why Joe, who received an Army Expeditionary Medal and an Army Commendation Medal for his service in military campaign Operation Uphold Democracy in Haiti, is deeply honored to serve as the grand marshal for Branford’s 2024 Veterans Day Parade. Joe will give his keynote address on the Branford Green on Sunday, Nov. 10 at 1 p.m. and will then head up the parade, which steps off at approximately 1:30 p.m.

In his address, Joe plans to share what inspired him to enlist in the military, in addition to emphasizing the different ways in which Memorial Day and Veterans Day help recognize military veterans.

“Memorial Day is to celebrate the fallen and the ones that are no longer with us, where Veterans Day also helps to recognize our former military who are an active part of our community,” says Joe.

Joe was selected for this special honor by the Branford Veterans Parade Committee, which organizes the town’s annual Memorial Day and Veterans Day ceremonies and parades.

“To be asked to do this is an incredible feeling. I’m very, very honored,” says Joe. “I owe much of, if not all of my personal success in life and in business to the values I learned as being a solider in the United States Army.”

A summary of Joe’s impressive service is only rivaled by his distinct recollections of his enlistment, as well as the exceptional experiences and people he encountered along the way.

Joe enlisted in 1991 and completed both basic training and training as an Army combat engineer. He was then stationed in Wildflecken, Germany with the 54th Engineer Battalion (Combat Mechanized) as engineer support for the 14th Armored Cavalry Division in the Fulda Gap. While in Fulda, he trained at Air Assault School with the 11th Air Cavalry Regiment, the “Blackhorse.”

In 1993, Joe was sent to attend U.S. Army Airborne School upon being assigned to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. There, he served with the 528th Special Operations Support Battalion and was deployed to Haiti for Operation Uphold Democracy.

Joe, an alumnus of the Branford High School Class of 1991, said that he enlisted because he was looking for something different after graduation.

“I was looking for something both physically and mentally challenging,” says Joe. “I was looking for something other than just going off to college, something that I felt was more of an adventure—seeing foreign countries at a young age and learning a lot of skills.”

Joe’s basic training and Army advanced individual training took place at Fort Leonard Wood, a U.S. Army training installation located in the Missouri Ozarks.

“I learned how to use explosives to clear barriers, to detect and avoid land mines, to open routes for armored fighting vehicles and infantry, to attack and fight the enemy. I learned how to perform reconnaissance missions to support units for mobility and to neutralize and defeat our enemies,” says Joe.

Joe was taught to fire and maintain weaponry such as the M16 rifle, the M60 machine gun, the Beretta M9, the M203 grenade launcher, and the M72 LAW shoulder-fired rocket launcher, in addition to learning how to set and activate explosives. After graduating as an Army Trailblazer in his class, Joe was stationed in Wildflecken, Germany in the Fulda Gap.

“During the Cold War, the Fulda Gap was one of two routes the Soviets would have used to move mechanized, armored, and infantry through as an invasion into the western part of Europe. We were considered and known as a ‘speed bump’ hypothetically, holding back the Soviet invasion of Europe for maybe a day or two at best,” Joe explains.

As it happened, the 54th Engineers Command Sargent Major (CSM) Stephen Walls had been first sergeant for Joe’s basic training unit (31st Engineers, Charlie Company).

“He, of course, recognized me,” Joe says. “He pulled me aside and assigned me as the colonel’s driver, which meant I was with our battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel [LTC] Mudd, everywhere he went.”

Both CSM Walls and the late LTC James Mudd were veterans of the Vietnam War.

“Watching them conducting themselves as leaders had an influence on my life like no other experience. These two men where obviously born leaders. Lieutenant Colonel James Mudd later became a full bird colonel, was a graduate of West Point, and one of the greatest individuals I have ever known in my life,” says Joe, who still remains in contact with Walls. “I owe them bigtime for their influence on my life and how I conduct myself as a person today.”

Joe says that attending Air Assault School in Fulda with the “Blackhorse” was another memorable component of his military experiences.

“In Air Assault School, you learn to conduct air mobile, air assault helicopter operations, rappelling and fast-roping out of UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters; sling load operations, pathfinder operations, and rappelling from cliffs and buildings using both the Swiss seat and sling-rope rappel style,” he says.

Joe’s involvement with the 54th also included assisting with base deactivation in Germany. In 1993, he received a change in duty station orders to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The unit he was being assigned to required Joe to become U.S. Army airborne/paratrooper qualified. He attended the U.S. Army Airborne School, also known as Jump School, where he learned how to parachute out of an airplane.

“To qualify, you had to make four daytime jumps and one nighttime jump,” says Joe. “We jumped from both a C-130 and C-141 during the three-week course.”

At Fort Bragg, Joe was stationed with the 528th Special Operations Support Battalion.

“I was in a platoon of combat engineers, and we were combat engineer support for the 3rd Special Forces Group,” Joe says. “Part of my duty was to be a ‘Pinelander in Pineland’ at the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center during the Robin Sage training exercise phase of U.S. Army Special Forces training.”

The two-week exercise culminated the final phase of Special Forces school.

“We were providing support in role-playing as a foreign army, where the Special Forces students would have to gain our trust, build our group a chain of command, successfully train us to fight side by side with U.S. ground forces, and to successfully leave us to conduct ourselves as foreign representatives of the U.S. Army,” Joe explains.

Joe’s next chapter of his Army service took him to Haiti for Operation Uphold Democracy. The multinational military intervention ended a Haitian coup d’etat which began in 1991 with the overthrow and exile of the elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and the installation of Haitian Military General Raoul Cédras as de facto leader.

“Our job was to return Haiti to the elected government in a peaceful manner and to assist the Haitian people with security during this time of change,” says Joe.

Joe deployed to Haiti with the 3rd Special Forces Group as part of the group’s combat engineer support. He arrived on Sept. 1, 1994 and remained in Haiti until March 23, 1995. Joe was mainly in Gonaives, Jacmel, and Port-au-Prince during his time in the country.

“It was pretty tough there. I did anything from guarding government buildings and airports from militants to going to towns to lend humanitarian assistance to people. It was a pretty desperate situation,” says Joe.

Joe feels that there are not many Operation Uphold Democracy veterans in the New Haven County area.

“I have yet to meet anybody from around here who served in Operation Uphold Democracy,” Joe notes. “It was a very unique mission.”

Following his Army service, Joe returned home and entered the business world.

“A family member of mine was seeing success in the insurance industry in retail insurance sales, so I decided to get my insurance license,” says Joe.

He became licensed in January of 1996 and took a job with LH Brenner Insurance in New Haven before opening his own insurance agency in 1998. Within two years, together with his brother, John, Joe purchased Branford-based Pawson Insurance from its previous owner. In 2021, their excellent track record as a full-service retail insurance brokerage specializing in property and casualty led to the company’s current status as as a division of U.S. brokerage firm Risk Strategies, which acquired it in 2021.

Joe’s wife Ina is also with Risk Strategies as a member of the company’s accounting workforce. The couple raised their two children in Branford—daughter Annie, who is in her senior year at Northeastern University; and son Alec, who is a freshman at Sacred Heart University.

As he looks toward entering his third decade of an exceptional insurance career, Joe says that his Army background has always helped him to succeed.

“I am still at it, active in our community and doing the best job I possibly can for my clients, including many of them who have done business with me for all these years and I consider family,” he says, adding, “...I’m very grateful for all the clients that I’ve had over the years and have been with me over the many decades and honored to have their trust and confidence for as long as I’ve had it. Just as it’s been an honor to represent my country in the military, it’s an honor to represent my clients in the insurance space.”