thedrifter
11-16-06, 06:12 PM
A PILOT’S PERSPECTIVE
Reflects on career of 30 years
by Marge Neal
The Marines are probably grateful that Scott Doyle decided that becoming an educator just wasn’t for him.
The Edgemere native and 1972 Sparrows Point High School graduate made that discovery while doing his student teaching during his senior year at Frostburg State College.
Fraternity brothers involved in ROTC encouraged the health, physical education and recreation major to take the Marine Corps aptitude test.
He obviously made an impression upon Marine recruiters. Doyle, in the fall of his senior year, was offered a seat at flight school upon his 1976 graduation.
He said yes to the offer, “with the intent of spending six years in the military and then doing something else.”
But as often happens, six years turned into many more. The promotions kept coming and the fun didn’t stop, Doyle said.
“I was having so much fun flying, being a Marine, being with guys — enlisted men and officers — my own age,” he said. “There was a bunch of lieutenants, we all grew up together as Marines.”
And before he knew it, he was a “full-bird” colonel staring retirement in the face.
“I’d do it all over again in a New York minute if they’d let me, but they won’t let me,” he said.
‘Brotherhood’
In Doyle’s long and productive career with the U.S. Marine Corps, he did everything from pilot the presidential Marine helicopter to serve as a battle captain in Iraq.
Along the way, he was promoted again and again and received training in amphibious warfare, senior officer military justice and aircraft maintenance, and became a highly decorated soldier (see box).
He’s proud of all that, but he insists he’ll carry his personal experiences with him the rest of his life.
With every story he tells, he credits his men for his success.
As a battle captain in Iraq, he carried a lot of responsibility.
“I ran the flight schedule,” he said. “I took requests for med-evacs, assigned or diverted aircraft as needed to more dire situations.
“I worked with some super, super Marines and sailors, and those guys kept me out of trouble on a daily basis because they were the experts.”
Surrounded by capable F-18 and helicopter pilots, ace mechanics and other staffers, Doyle felt confident that every mission would be accomplished.
“They’d give me the information, I’d make a decision and we’d go with it,” Doyle said. “And because of the talent of the air crews, they always made it work.”
Asked about a favorite memory from his long time with the Marines, the answer surprisingly doesn’t come from his four years piloting U.S. presidents on Squadron One.
But that also says something about a man who was most concerned with the men under his leadership.
“My favorite memory is of working with young enlisted Marines, young officers,” Doyle said. “Their ‘can do’ attitude kept me going every day.”
He recalled being told by a superior that if “you take care of the Marines, they’ll take care of you.
“So I feed, clothe and train them — the easy stuff — and they do the hard stuff.”
He recalled a particular incident in which a CH-53 crashed in a remote area of Thailand.
“We put a team together to go recover the craft and bring it back,” Doyle said. “We had to disassemble the craft and get it out of Thailand and into South Korea.”
The Marines had to cut a road through the jungle to where the ’copter was, and they were working in the height of summer heat.
“We’d start working at 5 a.m. and we’d have to quit by 10 because it would be so hot you couldn’t touch the metal of the craft,” Doyle said.
Working in a remote location, the men were constantly challenged by completing the disassembly project without the benefit of power tools.
“Everything had to be done by hand, and those guys would build their own tools to get the job done,” Doyle said. “They absolutely amazed me.
The “bird” had to be stripped down so it could be transported out and rebuilt: “Aircraft are high-ticket items. We had to get it out of there to repair, rebuild and get it back to the fleet.”
Doyle recalled with a laugh his men’s herculean efforts transporting the remains out of the jungle: “I wonder what the locals thought, because it looked like a spaceship on the back of the truck when we got it out of there.”
“Flying the president of the United States is the icing on the cake,” Doyle said, “but working with the Marines on a day-to-day basis is the real deal.”
To a Marine, hard work is part of the deal.
Doyle said he arrived at a hangar around 6 a.m. one morning to fly out to a meeting later in the day.
Two Marines were already there, engrossed in a project. When Doyle returned from his meeting almost 13 hours later, he saw the same two men there, intent on finishing the job.
“They had smiles on their faces, they loved what they were doing,” Doyle said. “I told them to go home, but I’ll bet they were there another hour.
“That’s why I’d give my shirt to another Marine. That’s that brotherhood I can’t say enough about, and that’s what I miss the most.”
‘Impartial leader’
Capt. Bob Lockard, now serving in North Carolina as a maintenance officer for the new V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor airplane, met Doyle when he was a sergeant assigned to the presidential helicopter squadron.
“We’ve been pretty close since 1989,” Lockard said. “You couldn’t ask for a greater guy to work for. He was a dynamic and impartial leader who always had the best interests of his young Marines at heart.”
Lockard said nurturing young Marines made Doyle a top supervisor.
“If you had to pick somebody to go to work for again, Scott Doyle was the guy,” Lockard said. “He was a great person to have in your corner at all times.”
Solid upbringing
Doyle grew up in Edgemere with his older sister, Linda, and a younger brother, Craig.
From the beginning, parents Albert and Mildred let the kids know that they were the focus of the family.
“None of our children have ever given us an ounce of trouble,” Mildred Doyle said. “We just bust with being proud of Scott, but we’re proud of all our children.”
She said that, as the second child, Scott Doyle always was independent, from the time he tried tying his own shoes at the age of 2.
Albert Doyle said all the kids were involved in every sport and activity available to them, and were kept busy and out of trouble all year long.
“And we backed them on everything they did,” he said. “We followed them around, went to all their games and supported them in everything they did.”
The proud father said he also impressed upon his children from a young age that they would all go to college, which they all did.
Albert Doyle, who weighs just 10 pounds more than he did when he was a Marine, surprised his son by wearing his 1940s uniform, which Linda Doyle had cleaned and repaired, to the retirement ceremony.
Family man, family decisions
Doyle has been married to his high school sweetheart, the former Joyce Taylor, since 1977 (she’s a 1973 Sparrows Point grad and also graduated from Frostburg State).
They have two sons, Taylor, a senior at Rutgers, and Casey, a junior at Virginia Tech.
His parents still live in the Edgemere house that the kids grew up in and are close to their son, who was inspired in part by his dad to become a Marine.
So why is this gung-ho Marine retired when he says he’d do it all over again if he could?
Because he made a career decision that was best for his family, even if it meant the ultimate end to his service as a Marine.
“I was offered a command in Hawaii, and I turned it down,” Doyle said. “I put a white board up on the kitchen wall and took a couple of weeks to list all the pros and cons about taking the assignment.”
The lists on both sides of the board grew with each passing day, but Doyle realized a distinct pattern: “All the pros were about me and all the cons were about the rest of the family.”
While he would have a plum assignment and more depth on his r/sum/, his wife would have to leave her job and friends, his sons would have to change schools — again — and the family dog would have to be quarantined for a length of time, for starters.
“So I turned the command down and that basically ended my career,” he said. “I made my own bed.”
He was given a mandatory retirement date of July 2007, but felt the timing was right this past summer, with 30 years invested in his beloved brotherhood.
No regrets
Doyle said he has “absolutely no regrets” about the way he chose to spend his life, even though there were some bumps along the way, mainly in the form of personal loss.
“Ninety-eight percent of it was an incredible experience,” he said. “There were the down times — I’ve lost colleagues and there were aircraft mishaps.”
Being a Marine pilot was a dream come true for the Edgemere boy who wore his father’s Marine uniform while playing in the woods as a kid when the television show Combat was popular.
He looked up to his dad
and uncle Wendall “Wimp” Doyle, both World War II veterans, as a kid and continues to admire them to this day. He’s added to that list of heroes his father-in-law, also a WWII vet.
“My retirement was made all the more special because those guys were there,” he said of the Aug. 25 ceremony in Norfolk, Va.
Ultimately, he said his career “wasn’t about the piloting, it was about the men.
“If I was told I could be a pilot in the Army, Air Force or Navy, or I could just be a Marine but I couldn’t be a pilot anymore, I’d be a Marine.”
Ellie
Reflects on career of 30 years
by Marge Neal
The Marines are probably grateful that Scott Doyle decided that becoming an educator just wasn’t for him.
The Edgemere native and 1972 Sparrows Point High School graduate made that discovery while doing his student teaching during his senior year at Frostburg State College.
Fraternity brothers involved in ROTC encouraged the health, physical education and recreation major to take the Marine Corps aptitude test.
He obviously made an impression upon Marine recruiters. Doyle, in the fall of his senior year, was offered a seat at flight school upon his 1976 graduation.
He said yes to the offer, “with the intent of spending six years in the military and then doing something else.”
But as often happens, six years turned into many more. The promotions kept coming and the fun didn’t stop, Doyle said.
“I was having so much fun flying, being a Marine, being with guys — enlisted men and officers — my own age,” he said. “There was a bunch of lieutenants, we all grew up together as Marines.”
And before he knew it, he was a “full-bird” colonel staring retirement in the face.
“I’d do it all over again in a New York minute if they’d let me, but they won’t let me,” he said.
‘Brotherhood’
In Doyle’s long and productive career with the U.S. Marine Corps, he did everything from pilot the presidential Marine helicopter to serve as a battle captain in Iraq.
Along the way, he was promoted again and again and received training in amphibious warfare, senior officer military justice and aircraft maintenance, and became a highly decorated soldier (see box).
He’s proud of all that, but he insists he’ll carry his personal experiences with him the rest of his life.
With every story he tells, he credits his men for his success.
As a battle captain in Iraq, he carried a lot of responsibility.
“I ran the flight schedule,” he said. “I took requests for med-evacs, assigned or diverted aircraft as needed to more dire situations.
“I worked with some super, super Marines and sailors, and those guys kept me out of trouble on a daily basis because they were the experts.”
Surrounded by capable F-18 and helicopter pilots, ace mechanics and other staffers, Doyle felt confident that every mission would be accomplished.
“They’d give me the information, I’d make a decision and we’d go with it,” Doyle said. “And because of the talent of the air crews, they always made it work.”
Asked about a favorite memory from his long time with the Marines, the answer surprisingly doesn’t come from his four years piloting U.S. presidents on Squadron One.
But that also says something about a man who was most concerned with the men under his leadership.
“My favorite memory is of working with young enlisted Marines, young officers,” Doyle said. “Their ‘can do’ attitude kept me going every day.”
He recalled being told by a superior that if “you take care of the Marines, they’ll take care of you.
“So I feed, clothe and train them — the easy stuff — and they do the hard stuff.”
He recalled a particular incident in which a CH-53 crashed in a remote area of Thailand.
“We put a team together to go recover the craft and bring it back,” Doyle said. “We had to disassemble the craft and get it out of Thailand and into South Korea.”
The Marines had to cut a road through the jungle to where the ’copter was, and they were working in the height of summer heat.
“We’d start working at 5 a.m. and we’d have to quit by 10 because it would be so hot you couldn’t touch the metal of the craft,” Doyle said.
Working in a remote location, the men were constantly challenged by completing the disassembly project without the benefit of power tools.
“Everything had to be done by hand, and those guys would build their own tools to get the job done,” Doyle said. “They absolutely amazed me.
The “bird” had to be stripped down so it could be transported out and rebuilt: “Aircraft are high-ticket items. We had to get it out of there to repair, rebuild and get it back to the fleet.”
Doyle recalled with a laugh his men’s herculean efforts transporting the remains out of the jungle: “I wonder what the locals thought, because it looked like a spaceship on the back of the truck when we got it out of there.”
“Flying the president of the United States is the icing on the cake,” Doyle said, “but working with the Marines on a day-to-day basis is the real deal.”
To a Marine, hard work is part of the deal.
Doyle said he arrived at a hangar around 6 a.m. one morning to fly out to a meeting later in the day.
Two Marines were already there, engrossed in a project. When Doyle returned from his meeting almost 13 hours later, he saw the same two men there, intent on finishing the job.
“They had smiles on their faces, they loved what they were doing,” Doyle said. “I told them to go home, but I’ll bet they were there another hour.
“That’s why I’d give my shirt to another Marine. That’s that brotherhood I can’t say enough about, and that’s what I miss the most.”
‘Impartial leader’
Capt. Bob Lockard, now serving in North Carolina as a maintenance officer for the new V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor airplane, met Doyle when he was a sergeant assigned to the presidential helicopter squadron.
“We’ve been pretty close since 1989,” Lockard said. “You couldn’t ask for a greater guy to work for. He was a dynamic and impartial leader who always had the best interests of his young Marines at heart.”
Lockard said nurturing young Marines made Doyle a top supervisor.
“If you had to pick somebody to go to work for again, Scott Doyle was the guy,” Lockard said. “He was a great person to have in your corner at all times.”
Solid upbringing
Doyle grew up in Edgemere with his older sister, Linda, and a younger brother, Craig.
From the beginning, parents Albert and Mildred let the kids know that they were the focus of the family.
“None of our children have ever given us an ounce of trouble,” Mildred Doyle said. “We just bust with being proud of Scott, but we’re proud of all our children.”
She said that, as the second child, Scott Doyle always was independent, from the time he tried tying his own shoes at the age of 2.
Albert Doyle said all the kids were involved in every sport and activity available to them, and were kept busy and out of trouble all year long.
“And we backed them on everything they did,” he said. “We followed them around, went to all their games and supported them in everything they did.”
The proud father said he also impressed upon his children from a young age that they would all go to college, which they all did.
Albert Doyle, who weighs just 10 pounds more than he did when he was a Marine, surprised his son by wearing his 1940s uniform, which Linda Doyle had cleaned and repaired, to the retirement ceremony.
Family man, family decisions
Doyle has been married to his high school sweetheart, the former Joyce Taylor, since 1977 (she’s a 1973 Sparrows Point grad and also graduated from Frostburg State).
They have two sons, Taylor, a senior at Rutgers, and Casey, a junior at Virginia Tech.
His parents still live in the Edgemere house that the kids grew up in and are close to their son, who was inspired in part by his dad to become a Marine.
So why is this gung-ho Marine retired when he says he’d do it all over again if he could?
Because he made a career decision that was best for his family, even if it meant the ultimate end to his service as a Marine.
“I was offered a command in Hawaii, and I turned it down,” Doyle said. “I put a white board up on the kitchen wall and took a couple of weeks to list all the pros and cons about taking the assignment.”
The lists on both sides of the board grew with each passing day, but Doyle realized a distinct pattern: “All the pros were about me and all the cons were about the rest of the family.”
While he would have a plum assignment and more depth on his r/sum/, his wife would have to leave her job and friends, his sons would have to change schools — again — and the family dog would have to be quarantined for a length of time, for starters.
“So I turned the command down and that basically ended my career,” he said. “I made my own bed.”
He was given a mandatory retirement date of July 2007, but felt the timing was right this past summer, with 30 years invested in his beloved brotherhood.
No regrets
Doyle said he has “absolutely no regrets” about the way he chose to spend his life, even though there were some bumps along the way, mainly in the form of personal loss.
“Ninety-eight percent of it was an incredible experience,” he said. “There were the down times — I’ve lost colleagues and there were aircraft mishaps.”
Being a Marine pilot was a dream come true for the Edgemere boy who wore his father’s Marine uniform while playing in the woods as a kid when the television show Combat was popular.
He looked up to his dad
and uncle Wendall “Wimp” Doyle, both World War II veterans, as a kid and continues to admire them to this day. He’s added to that list of heroes his father-in-law, also a WWII vet.
“My retirement was made all the more special because those guys were there,” he said of the Aug. 25 ceremony in Norfolk, Va.
Ultimately, he said his career “wasn’t about the piloting, it was about the men.
“If I was told I could be a pilot in the Army, Air Force or Navy, or I could just be a Marine but I couldn’t be a pilot anymore, I’d be a Marine.”
Ellie