New Gloucester man outranks father, from Winthrop, but says dad is his hero

The first time father-and-son soldiers Tom and John Driscoll met in Iraq, the elder snapped a salute with the words, “Chief Warrant Officer Driscoll, reporting as ordered.”

“It was surreal,” said the 28-year-old son, a U.S. Army captain from New Gloucester with authority over the planes and helicopters flying above much of Iraq.

The pair hugged, and John Driscoll tried to absorb the sudden overlapping of his worlds.

Here was his dad, his hero, in a war zone. And they were wearing the same uniform, though John, the son, had the brass.

“I got to know my dad as a soldier, as one of the guys,” John Driscoll said in a phone interview Tuesday from Baghdad. “And he is still my hero.”

For the son, it was an almost inevitable meeting.

Tom Driscoll had served as an active-duty Army pilot when John was young. He was about to begin school when his father left the active-duty military and the family settled in Maine.

The boy grew up hearing stories about his father’s Army exploits, just as Tom had grown up hearing them from his father.

“My dad was a B-17 bomber pilot in World War II flying missions with the 8th Army Air Force from England over France and Germany,” Tom Driscoll recently told an Army journalist. “My son, a third generation Army pilot, is named after his grandfather and proudly carries on our family’s military heritage.”

After graduating from Gray-New Gloucester High School in 1998, John Driscoll attended Norwich University, a military college in Northfield, Vt.

He then entered the Army and became a pilot, quickly climbing in rank.

“I grew up with a sense of service in the military,” said John, who serves with the legendary 10th Mountain Division, based in Fort Drum, N.Y. “It’s not a career thing. You do your part and then leave. That’s what I intend to do.”

He’s not leaving right away, though. His deployment – his second in Iraq – began last May and is scheduled to end in late spring.

His job is to oversee air traffic across Iraq from the former international airport in Baghdad. It’s duty that keeps him out of the cockpit. Like every pilot, he’d rather be in the sky.

That’s where his father served as a pilot with the Maine National Guard’s 126th Aviation Regiment, which returned home on Jan. 1. Efforts to reach the elder Driscoll, who lives in Winthrop, were unsuccessful.

While in Iraq, his unit flew more than 3,000 hours and evacuated more than 670 patients, according to a statement from the Maine Army National Guard.

Always, John kept an eye on the Maine group.

He might not have known whether his dad was flying on a particular mission, but he knew if the unit came close to combat.

“I knew he was safe,” John said.

And when they connected face to face, they savored their company.

Once they spent a day mountain biking around an air base. Another time, they used a computer Web cam to connect with John’s family at home near Fort Drum.

They sang and played guitar for John’s wife, Angie, the couple’s 3-year-old twins, Eve and Hannah, and infant Lillie, who is 8 months old.

Father and son also spent time with each other’s friends and fellow soldiers.

“Growing up, he was always the decision-maker, guardian and leader of the family,” John said. “In Iraq, it was the opposite. He looked to me for guidance, information and insight into divisional operations.”

John also played a role in sometimes deciding what his father’s unit did. Both men acted professionally. “However, it never really felt normal,” John said.

It also supplied them with a few laughs.

“He has a real sense of humor and would address me by rank and salute me every chance he could get,” John said.

In the end, the meetings helped John cherish each moment he and his father spent together.

“My dad has always been a role model and hero to me, was and always will be,” John said. “Serving with him in this environment did not diminish this. However, it made me realize that no one is invincible. We are all vulnerable over here.

“No one is superhuman, not even our fathers.”