The following article was generously donated by the Mountain Gazette in Jericho 

Scott McLaughlin Proud to Serve his Country

By Sara Riley

Special to the Mountain Gazette

“I don’t want to go to Iraq and leave my family, but I want to go to Iraq and do a good job and serve my country and feel good about it when I get home.”

That’s how his dad Kevin McLaughlin of West Bolton says his son Scott felt about his deployment with the 172nd Armed Regiment, 1st Battalion, Company C, Morrisville, of the Army National Guard to the Iraq war. Scott had spent time in the Marines after graduating in 1994 from Mount Mansfield Union High School – he graduated, turned 18, and went to Parris Island all in the space of two days – and after the attacks of September 11, 2001 Scott was motivated once again to step forward to serve.

It’s not a role one might have expected for this good-natured and gentle young man. The middle child of three, Scott and his older brother John and younger sister Shalena grew up in the Nashville valley in West Bolton, where their parents still live. It is a wide swath of pastures, farms, and homes set between the hills of the Ethan Allen Firing Range on the north and Bolton Mountain on the south, with the Long Trail running along the ridges to the east. It feels insulated from the outside world, with no view to the west of Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks, but not isolated – more like a haven where Scott and his siblings and friends were free and safe to range where they would among the woods, streams, and ponds.

So Scott and his friends grew up together in the valley, forging friendships that lasted. Brian Tinker, Ben Hines, Jacob Streeter, and Jeff Gokey were among the friends who played football and baseball – Scott’s favorite – in the neighborhood, when they weren’t out in the woods, fishing and building forts and swimming and practicing woodcraft and hunting skills. They did not have or need organized activities; their hardworking parents and neighbors all watched out for them and fostered both independence and responsibility.

The family’s children followed each other through the schools – Jericho Elementary, Camel’s Hump, and MMU. Shalena, the youngest, looked up to her brothers. She copied their likes and dislikes and took part in their games in the woods. Quick and verbal, she admired Scott’s quiet patience and often followed his lead, including when she finally had grown enough hair to do anything with, letting him cut it all off – an early indication of Scott’s mischievous side. As a teenager, he drove a Blazer with a big sound system; you could hear him coming from way down the road, Ozzy Osborne blaring.

In school, Scott did well, and he had an artistic bent, shown by his early drawings and clay projects, but these abilities were not part of his main focus on the outdoor life.

  Scott and Family

Hunting was one of Scott’s favorite activities from a very early age. His father remembers him concentrating hard to catch grasshoppers against the house when Scott was a year old – his first catch-and-release, Kevin says. Larry Benoit, a family friend and hunting author (How to Bag the Biggest Buck of Your Life) who was like a second father to Scott’s mom Vickie, was an early mentor who taught Scott a great deal about the forest, to pay close attention to detail, and the skill and practice necessary to hunting. These came easily to Scott, who loved animals and seemed to have a special ability to find bear cubs in trees (twice, as a young teenager). It might not have been the safest thing to do, since mama bears tend to regard this with annoyance, but Scott loved observing wild animals and learning their ways. Once, when he was supposed to be fishing at the pond, he got chased home by a fisher instead. Vickie was just glad it wasn’t a mountain lion!

Scott completed the hunter safety course at 12, and got his first partridge that year, possibly (his dad says) the stupidest bird in Vermont. At Scott’s first shot with his single-shot 20-gauge, the bird just sat in the tree. At the second shot, it hopped to a higher branch. Third time’s the charm; now the stuffed partridge waits to be passed on to Scott’s son Tyler. Though Scott hunted deer often in the hills above the valley, he never brought one home. He took a 700-pound moose instead, up on Bolton Mountain.

Fishing was another of Scott’s lifelong interests, whether it was catching brookies in the streams around Nashville valley or trying for the bigger fish in Lake Champlain, Lake Eligo in Hardwick, or the Green River Reservoir in Morrisville. On August 5, 2000, Scott and his best man, his brother John, are rumored to have calmed their nerves before the ceremony on Scott’s wedding day by fishing. In their tuxedoes.

 Scott and his wife Nicole, who is from Waterbury, planned a life that showed their shared enjoyment of the outdoors. They wanted land and room, and bought just under 25 acres in Hardwick with a big old farmhouse on it, and began their family. Their son Tyler Scott is now six; their daughter Molly Marlene is still a baby. Scott had begun to share his love of the woods – and his mischievous side – with Tyler. Years ago, Scott had been out scouting deer and had brought home a pocketful of deer poop, to show Kevin and Vickie how big the deer was. Last fall, out in the woods with Kevin and Tyler, Scott and his dad persuaded Tyler to “take some home to Mommy” – some deer poop, that is – this time in a bag, not in Tyler’s pocket. Scott loved teaching Tyler his appreciation of the outdoors, and was proud of how good his son was at sitting still and observing in the woods.

In the Marines, Scott’s aptitude tests showed that he had good mechanical abilities, and in his civilian work at Cadcut in Middlesex and in Vermont National Guard as a tank mechanic, Scott used those abilities. He was successful at Cadcut where his job was being held for his return. When he was deployed with the Guard to Iraq, Scott told his co-workers, “If I don’t come back, keep my locker the same.” Probably all soldiers have such thoughts before they go to a war zone, but Scott was proud to serve and was especially proud that his Guard unit was attached to a Marine combat unit. What bothered Scott most in Iraq were the children begging for food and water, and living in shacks. We have so much over here, Scott felt. Everyone should go over and see what it’s like there, and complain less.

When he was small, Scott’s mother Vickie liked to read to the children at bedtime, and Scott’s favorite book was The Tale of Ferdinand the Bull by Munro Leaf. It is the story of a young calf who grows up in the countryside of Spain. The other bull calves play at being fierce, butting heads and later, crossing horns. Ferdinand, on the other hand, is not interested in such play; he is gentle and not interested in fighting. Ferdinand is different, and content to be so. One day when he is a grown strong bull, Ferdinand is stung by a bee. His stupendous reaction impresses the men who are there scouting for the bull ring, and Ferdinand is taken to Madrid – where, it turns out, he is still the same gentle animal, uninterested in fighting. Scott was a little like Ferdinand: gentle and good-natured, but goaded by an unanticipated attack. He was proud to serve in defense of our country, but Scott wanted nothing more than to return to live and love Nicole, Tyler, Molly, and the rest of his family and friends, in our beautiful Vermont.

Scott had been deployed in Iraq for three months when, on September 22, 2005, he was killed by a sniper while manning an observation post in the turret of an M88, a tank tow truck, in Ramadi, Iraq. It is a great loss to his friends and family, with whom Scott planned to live and appreciate what we have, and to share the wonderful outdoor life. And at Cadcut, they have kept his locker the same.

(Those who wish may send memorial gifts to be used for the care and education of Scott’s children to TD Banknorth, P.O. Box 360, Waterbury, VT 05676.)