THE COLONEL’S CHRONICLE

Please allow me to introduce you to my friend and mentor, John C. Scott, Lt. Col., USAF (ret). He is known as Colonel to the residents and staff of the assisted living facility in which he is currently residing. Colonel Scott turned 85 on January 31st, 2026. He was one of the first people I got to know when I moved to Steubenville in 2005. I saw him at daily Mass before which he led the Rosary every day. I saw his wife, Mary, a few times but sadly did not get to know her very well before she passed away of Pancreatic Cancer in 2014.I love hearing his war stories because I also served in the Air Force for 20 years. Over the years I got to know the high points of his life story and since he moved into the assisted living facility, in Weirton, West Virginia, right across the river from my home in Steubenville, Ohio, I began visiting him every Monday morning. After enjoying so many of his amazing stories, I suggested that we capture some of them so they could be shared. That idea has grown into this memoir.Near the end of the project John expressed some apprehension about how the stories seem to make him into some kind of hero. In modesty, he insists that that is not the case. All he ever did for his whole life was try to do the right thing.This book is likely different from any other book you’ve read. It is gleaned from a series of rambling interviews-more like two friends shooting the breeze-that took place in 2025 and 2026. As I’m sure anyone with 85-year-old friends can attest, the stories are fascinating and somewhat meandering. As he talks, he’s reminded of other stories or characters or events, and he just abandons the track he started down to chase the new topic.It was somewhat challenging to organize all the stories and place them chronologically here for you. We did our best but still, there are 'jumps' in the narrative and 7repetitions that are unavoidable. Hopefully we’ve arranged them well enough so that the reader can manage to follow the thread while experiencing the stories as they were told to us.My primary concern was that the reader be able to hear John’s story in his own words-in the way he said them-without getting lost. As you’ll learn, John is very well educated, brilliant and articulate. He is also a child of his North Philadelphia neighborhood. His language is often salty, so we edited the material slightly so as to remove the offending terminology while hopefully retaining the strength of the emotion they were meant to convey.We’ve added some explanatory words here and there, primarily at the beginning of new sections, to help smooth the transitions from one episode to the next and to anchor the stories into actual historical events and personalities.