If Anyone Could Have Made It … Friends And Teachers Recall O’Grady’s ‘Stick-To-It’ Attitude

FOR THE RECORD: Saturday, June 10, 1995 CORRECTION: A Friday photograph of Air Force Capt. Scott O’Grady and two friends was taken in Seattle four years ago, information beneath the photo was incorrect.

Friends say the Air Force fighter pilot from Spokane who spent six harrowing days hiding behind enemy lines in Bosnia is a “stick-to-it kid” who always yearned to fly.

Capt. Scott O’Grady, 29, was doing just that on June 2 when his F-16 was shot down by a Serb missile over Bosnia. He ejected from the fiery jet, which was severed by the missile before the wreckage crashed in a pine forest.

On Thursday, O’Grady was resting aboard a Navy amphibious assault ship, hours after Marines had picked up his emergency radio signal and rescued him with helicopter gunships.

The survival story of the newest U.S. military hero doesn’t surprise the Spokane friends who knew his character.

If O’Grady made it out of the plane alive, they knew he would make it, they said.

“He’s very steady, levelheaded and intelligent,” said Jim McMullen, whose son graduated with O’Grady from Lewis and Clark High School. “We’re not talking about just anybody. Scott is a remarkable young man.”

As a junior and senior in high school, O’Grady was a wide receiver on the football team.

“He was one of the smaller guys on the team and not one of the standouts, as I remember,” assistant coach Patrick Pfeifer recalled. “I often wondered how he stayed on the team, and I remember that it was his ‘stick-to-it’ attitude.”

LC teacher John Hook, who became the head football coach for O’Grady’s senior year, said O’Grady returned to the team with enthusiasm even though the squad hadn’t won a single game the previous year.

“That shows a little about his resiliency and the commitment he makes,” he said.

LC teacher Karen Mahan, whose children played soccer with O’Grady, recalled him as being very athletic, outgoing and disciplined.

“The discipline from his sports probably helped him in what he’s doing now,” Mahan said.

O’Grady’s mother, Mary Lou Scardapane, received word of her son’s rescue Wednesday night and also got a phone call from President Clinton.

As she worried for her son’s safety, she recalled his strong belief in his job as a fighter pilot. She said he once told her, “Mom, this is my job, this is what I do.”

Scardapane praised her son’s rescuers. “Yes, they have put themselves at risk, but they believed, they believed he was down there … and by God, they got him.”

High school buddy Steve McMullen got a letter from O’Grady last week, two days before the jet was shot down over Bosnia. O’Grady enclosed two pictures of himself and his F-16 - one showing him in the plane’s cockpit, giving the thumbs-up sign.

“He’s always writing us and keeping up with our lives,” said McMullen, 29. “His letters are always upbeat. He lets us know he’s living out his dream.”

After completing Air Force flight school, O’Grady returned to Spokane for a grueling three-week survival training at Fairchild Air Force Base.

The field training is done in a remote, mountainous area near Cusick, in northeastern Washington.

It was there O’Grady learned to survive in various terrains and climates, live on bugs and rainwater, avoid detection and resist interrogation.

Others who have survived downed aircraft say the training saved their lives.

“I don’t doubt for a minute that he knew exactly what to do,” said Greg Ewing, who grew up with O’Grady on the South Hill. “He is determined and smart. There’s no way he would have let himself get caught.”

Born in Brooklyn, O’Grady moved to Spokane as a boy with his parents, Dr. Bill O’Grady, who now lives in Alexandria, Va., and Mary Scardapane, of Seattle.

He attended Cataldo Catholic School and Gonzaga Prep briefly before transferring to LC as a freshman.

He returned last summer to Spokane for his 10-year high school reunion. Few of his former classmates were surprised to learn he was flying jets for the military.

Reunion organizer Betsy Weigle said O’Grady won the award for traveling the farthest - he came from Italy - to attend the event.

She spent Thursday putting together a care package for O’Grady, complete with a plastic F-16 “replacement plane.”

“We’re sending him all the articles and news videos that we can find about his rescue,” Weigle said. “And a list of all the different newspapers and people who’ve called Spokane today. There’s like 40 of them.”

O’Grady and his family lived at 407 E. 14th, where they were neighbors of Janet Gilpatrick, district assistant to former Rep. Tom Foley.

While in high school, O’Grady visited Gilpatrick at her home and in Foley’s district office, inquiring about congressional appointments to either the Air Force or Naval academies.

“He always expressed this dream of being a pilot, no doubt about it,” Gilpatrick recalled.

O’Grady did well academically and graduated with honors. He didn’t always do well on tests, however, including his Scholastic Aptitude Test, Gilpatrick said.

Because he feared that score wasn’t high enough, O’Grady didn’t go through Foley’s screening process for a chance at appointment to Annapolis or the Air Force Academy.

Instead, he attended the University of Washington, where he enrolled in ROTC. Then O’Grady transferred to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Ariz. He earned his degree there in 1989.

While awaiting admittance to the Air Force Flight School, he returned to Spokane in spring 1989 and worked at Spokane Airways as a flight instructor and charter pilot.

There, he met the company’s chief pilot, John Koch, who became O’Grady’s friend and mentor and urged him to become a Marine fighter pilot.

O’Grady held out for the Air Force, though.

Last week, Koch said he got a letter from O’Grady, postmarked at a NATO base in Italy, where his F-16 squadron is based.

“He said he really liked his assignment, and figured he’d be there a couple of more years before coming back to the states,” Koch said Thursday from Yakatat, Alaska, where he’ll charter planes this summer.

Koch, who tallied 180 combat missions over Vietnam, said he knew his friend could be assigned air-support missions over Bosnia.

When he heard news reports last week about the downed pilot, Koch said “the thought did cross my mind” that O’Grady was involved. His thoughts were confirmed Thursday, when Koch heard about O’Grady’s rescue.

“He may have been flying for the Air Force, but it was the Marines that went in there and got him out safely,” Koch said. “I’m not going to let him forget that.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Photos (1 color)

The following fields overflowed: BYLINE = Bonnie Harris and Bill Morlin Staff writers Correspondent Ward Sanderson contributed to this report.