FLYING AND FAMILY Military career brought Johnson around the world

Scotty Johnson served in the United States Army for 38 years, working in communications, safety and as a pilot. He said he couldn’t imagine his life without the military.

Johnson grew up in the military, his father serving around 30 years in the Army Air Force and the Air Force.

He enlisted on Nov. 1, 1966, during his sophomore year of college in Riverside, California.

“I knew there was the possibility of getting drafted even though I was a student,” he said. “They were taking a lot of folks to Vietnam, so I went ahead and said, ‘Hey, I’ll enlist for what I want.’”

Johnson eventually completed his degree throughout his military career, taking night and weekend classes. He has a degree in professional aeronautics from Emory Riddle University.

Once he enlisted, he said his ultimate goal was to make it to flight school and become a pilot like his father.

Johnson had his basic training at Fort Ord in California.

“I knew they were going to holler and all that other fun stuff,” he said. “I had a good class though. It wasn’t that overwhelming, just getting into a groove and then counting on your buddy to help you out.”

He also had interesting experiences while at basic training, including seclusion from other companies because of meningitis.

“At Fort Ord, because they had a problem with meningitis really bad, they kept the companies separated, so when we went down to get haircuts or the PX or something, only your company went,” he said. “Then, in our bay where we slept, all the windows had to be opened halfway in order to allow fresh air to come in so that meningitis, we wouldn’t have that big a problem with it.”

Johnson was given the responsibility of being a squad leader during basic training, and he said his experience during this time helped “re-emphasize” leadership skills he had already learned.

“I ended up becoming one of the squad leaders. We had four squads in our platoon, so that was kind of nice, being a leader, but you never knew if you were going to be in there that long,” he said. “They were putting people in there to see if they could handle it. I guess it re-emphasized skills about being a leader.”

During his last few weeks of basic training, Johnson was interviewed for a job with the White House Communications Agency.

Before being officially accepted for the job, he attended signal school for his AIT (advanced individual training) at Fort Gordon, Ga.

“That’s where I went and went through a course there,” he said. “I stayed there, and then around January or February of 1967, I got accepted. Finally, all my clearance went through. I ended up going to Washington D.C. and worked right there at the White House providing communications (support).”

He served with the White House Communications Agency for eight years, from 1967-1974, serving two-and-a-half years in Washington D.C. and five-and-a-half years in Key Biscayne, Fla.

During those eight years, he would speak and ride with the Army pilots of the president. Those experiences reminded him that he wanted to go to flight school.

“(The pilots) helped me with my paperwork, and I got some recommendations from some of those guys,” he said. “I put my packet in through the Army. In 1974, I went to flight school.”

He attended flight school at Fort Rucker in 1974 and graduated in 1975. He described the training as “demanding.”

“It was very demanding, very meticulous,” he said. “It was attention to detail is what it was. Back then, flight school was, you do something wrong, look wrong or whatever, you’re out of there. There weren’t a whole lot of second chances.

“They didn’t hand (your wings) to you, but it was very rewarding.”

After graduating from flight school, he was stationed at Fort Campbell, Ky.

“I flew UH-1s, the Huey’s,” Johnson said. “I was a unit trainer because I always wanted to be an instructor. I was the communications officer because of my signal background, and of course, I (served) as a motor officer and chemical officer.

“As a young W1, you try to grab all those jobs because they’ve got to grade you somehow against your peers. Everybody can say they can fly a helicopter, but all those extra duties are what gets you promoted.”

After his three years in Kentucky, from 1975-1978, Johnson was stationed in Hawaii where he served as an instructor pilot at Wheeler Army Airfield. He served there for five years.

As a child, Johnson’s father was stationed in Hawaii; his sister was born on the Marshall Islands. As a soldier, he was able to revisit some of the places he saw as a child.

“We lived on that island back in the ’50s when (my dad) was stationed there,” he said. “We lived in the old Quonset huts back then, and my sister was the first white baby girl born on the island. So, it was kind of neat to go back there later on as an adult. I (also) got to meet the lady who took care of us. That’s what’s nice is being able to visit those areas.”

After his time in Hawaii, Johnson then returned to Fort Rucker to serve as an instructor pilot for six years, from 1982-1988, before his first overseas tour in Germany, where he served from 1988-1991 as a standardization instructor pilot.

His tour in Germany coincided with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Johnson has pieces of the wall and memories of the city when it fell.

“I was helping coach our high school baseball team, and we got to go over there to Berlin on one of the last duty trains,” he said. “Even though the wall was down, they still had the duty train where it goes through, and (on those trains), they tell you not to open the curtains when you go through certain sectors.”

He said he and the baseball team were able to walk through the streets of East Berlin and see the differences in the two parts of the city. He said visiting the area past the wall was like “stepping back in time.”

“It looked like you were stepping back into the 40s or 50s, seeing some of that area. There were people there, former – I guess – soldiers, who were selling pieces of the wall. For a few bucks, they would give you a pick and a chisel and you could chisel out a chunk of the wall.”

After Germany, he then worked in the safety field when he was stationed at Hunter Army Airfield in Georgia from 1991-1993.

“It was (a smooth transition) because you’re always a safety officer in aviation,” Johnson said. “You know, I’d work with folks anyway as an instructor pilot. (As a safety officer), you’re maintaining records; you’re maintaining certain things, so it wasn’t different going through the course.

“Now, I would run a safety program instead of a standards program. Instead of safety records, now I would have OSHA-type programs. I would have flying programs; I would have fire extinguisher programs and those kinds of things. Everything is in more detail as a safety guy because you’re in charge of all that.”

Johnson was then stationed in Korea until 1994 on an unaccompanied tour. He served as a battalion safety officer who ran the safety program of one of the battalions under the brigade and flew Blackhawk helicopters.

He then returned to Fort Rucker until 1998, where he served as a branch safety officer. The branch safety office, according to Johnson, handles safety issues of the entire aviation branch worldwide.

Johnson then returned to Korea. This time, his wife, Dawn, joined him. He served in Korea from 1998-2001 as a brigade safety officer over several battalions.

During his second tour in Korea, he said he and his wife traveled and became immersed in the culture.

“When we were in Korea, we got out and did a lot of stuff,” he said. “I probably didn’t do so much my first tour, but when I took the wife (Dawn Johnson) over, we went on a lot of tours, did a lot of stuff. When she came over the last time, we ended up taking to trips into Vietnam. We made two trips to China.

“Back in my White House days, I was fortunate to be one of the team members; we went into China with Nixon, so we were in there early on. It was nice to go back over there and see this area and how it had evolved since 1972.”

He returned to Fort Rucker a final time in 2001, where he served as a safety officer for the medical research lab. He retired from military service in 2004 after 38 years of service. He was a Chief Warrant Officer 5.

He began working with the Department of the Army as a civilian soon after retiring from service. He retired from all federal government work in 2017.

Today, Johnson acts in local plays and productions and volunteers with various organizations, including CERT.

The Community Emergency Response Team helps Johnson use the skills he learned as a safety officer in the military to teach others how to prepare for a disaster and more.

“I’ve always been around safety, even early on, but it’s been a passion of mine, disaster preparedness and being safe,” he said. “When the CERT thing came along, it was just an opportunity to help my community and to help folks plan better for disasters prior to instead of waiting until the last minute.”

CERT started around four years ago in Coffee County.

“I went to Houston County and became one of their folks,” he said. “Then, I became a trainer because it was a natural thing. I’ve always trained in the Army anyway. That’s when we got wind that we were going to start a program down here, and then I got involved with the EMS folks at Enterprise Rescue (Squad).”

He was eventually put in charge of starting the program in Coffee County.

Johnson said that he has been able to do a lot of what he’s done during his military career, and even today, because of his wife. The couple has been married for almost 51 years. They have four children, eight grandchildren and one great grandchild.

Johnson said he couldn’t imagine doing anything with his life except serving in the military.

“I was born in the military; that’s all I’ve ever known,” he said. “I’ve seen that life. I just can’t picture me doing anything else other than that.”