By Mary Pritchard, Contributing Writer
Shrewsbury – Lt. John R. O”Neill, U.S. Navy, said he has the “coolest job in the world,” one that he dreamed of even before he was an elementary school student at St. Mary School in Shrewsbury. After his 2003 graduation from St. John's High School, John attended the Naval Academy and in May of 2007, he was commissioned as an active-duty officer.
“My four years at the academy were a little different than a typical college education,” he said. “I did well enough to be picked up to be a naval aviator, which is pretty competitive.”
John completed three years of flight school and now pilots the E-2C Hawkeye with the VAW-112 Golden Hawks Squadron.
John described the deployment he returned from this past February.
“I left last July with my squadron VAW-112, which was a part of Carrier Air Wing 9 (CAG 9), and we were deployed on board the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74),” he said. “We split the time of our seven-month deployment in the Persian Gulf during Operation New Dawn (OND) in Iraq during the troop pull-out and in the North Arabian Sea flying missions over Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF).”
Prior to and during his deployment, John had been in touch with Sira Naras, advancement director at St. Mary School, who works on reconnecting alumni with current St. Mary students.
“One night I returned from a late-night five-hour flight exhausted and drained, and in my ready room was a box of 250
cards made by St. Mary students,” he said. “It took me three days, but I read every one of them and shared them with others on the ship.”
When he came home on a two-week leave, John visited the students and gave them some advice.
“I told them to try to embrace the challenges of the curriculum now because it is designed to set them up for future success. St. Mary's set me up to do very well at St. John's High School, which set me up to do well enough at the U.S. Naval Academy to pick up a navy pilot spot,” he said. “Those schools all set me up for success throughout flight school and as a naval aviator where you’re required to be both great at flying the plane as well as knowing what to do when things go wrong. We had a situation where I landed the plane at night after a five-hour mission over Afghanistan and the primary brakes failed, causing the plane to accelerate and start spinning towards the edge of the flight deck, which is 60 feet above the water. The training I had kicked in immediately and I got the plane into the emergency braking system and stopped just several seconds before we could have gone off the side of the ship. I wanted the students to know that it took a lot of discipline and hours upon hours of studying to have those procedures so ingrained in my mind that I was able to execute them while staring at the edge of the ship as the plane almost rolled off of it, and that discipline all started when I was sitting in their seats and developed as time went on into potentially saving my life and that of my crew.”
John, who will be 27 in June, said it's very surreal to be flying missions over the places he's seen on the news for years.
“Launching off the ship never gets old,” he said. “We get to 170 mph in about two seconds. Landing, we'se going 130 to 140 mph and the ship is moving at about 30 mph, plus waves – we have about two to three seconds to stop.”
When asked what he loves the most about his job and what is the most difficult thing about it, the answers come easily.
“What I love the most is the ability to do what I feel is the coolest job in the world, the only job I’ve ever wanted since I was about two years old, and to do it all while wearing an American flag on the sleeve of my flight suit,” he said. “Honestly, the hardest part of it all is landing the plane on the moving ship at night. That will never be easy. Being away from my family for the holidays was tough, but we all understood it was for a greater purpose, and that for every one of the holidays I’ve had for the past 26 years, someone was out there keeping us safe, so it was honestly a privilege to take my turn.”
John credits his parents, Mark and Clara, for being the most generous people he knows and, taught by their example, he finds it “extremely gratifying” to serve his country.
“Serving this country means the world to me,” he said. “I'se been extremely fortunate to have an incredible family and a lot of opportunities and motivation. I can's describe how awesome this is.”
