Navy News, opinions, editorials, news from Iraq, photos, reports - Navy Times

As a boy, ensign helped clear Indianapolis CO

PENSACOLA, Fla. — During his senior year in 2003, Hunter Scott was chosen Most Likely to Succeed by his Pensacola High School classmates. Well, considering young Scott had already been on David Letterman’s television program twice, testified before Congress and been honored with Hunter Scott Day in Hawaii and Florida, it wasn’t like his classmates went out on a limb.

Scott gained fame as a youngster, attracting national media attention with a middle-school history project that he hoped would clear the name of a World War II skipper unfairly tarnished by the Navy and history. He succeeded.

Today, Scott, now 22, is back in Pensacola, launching a new career inspired by the work with the Navy veterans he befriended as a child. He’s Navy Ensign Hunter Scott and is undergoing flight training at Pensacola Naval Air Station.

His military commitment is at least 11 years, and then, Scott said, he might consider politics. But now, his focus is the Navy.

“I never considered joining the Navy until I met the men of the USS Indianapolis,” Scott said. “When I started hearing their sea stories, that’s when I started thinking about it.”

It was those stories of adventure, along with sad tales of death and grief and blame, that brought Scott to the national stage.

While a Ransom Middle School student, the youngster watched the movie “Jaws” with his father, educator Alan Scott, and heard actor Robert Shaw’s colorful character, Quint, recount the story of the Indianapolis.

Two weeks before the end of World War II, shortly after the cruiser delivered components for the first atomic bomb to the island of Tinian, the ship was sunk by a Japanese torpedo.

An estimated 300 of the 1,196 men on board died in the attack. The nearly 900 survivors floated in the waters of the Philippine Sea without lifeboats. It was four days before rescue ships arrived, and by then, only 316 men were alive.

The others died from lack of food and fresh water, exposure and, according to the Discovery Channel, the most shark attacks on humans in history.

The ship’s commander, Capt. Charles McVay III, was wounded but survived. Court-martialed in 1945, he was convicted of “hazarding his ship by failing to zigzag.” He retired from the Navy as a rear admiral in 1949 and committed suicide in 1968.

The young Scott decided to research the tragedy of the Indianapolis for a sixth-grade history fair project. He scoured through reference material, collected artifacts and eventually interviewed more than 100 survivors, many of whom thought McVay was wrongly blamed for the ship’s sinking.

Scott lobbied hard for McVay’s exoneration, eventually testifying before Congress and appearing on every major network’s news programs, and even Letterman’s show.

McVay was exonerated by Congress in 2000.

After graduating from Pensacola High School in 2003, Scott who had flirted with the idea of attending a military academy enrolled at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill on a Navy ROTC scholarship. He graduated last spring with a degree in economics.

Scott was a cheerleader for the North Carolina Tar Heels, performing at basketball and football games. He learned tumbling from his football teammates during high school.

It was at North Carolina that Scott met then-Sen. John Edwards, a current Democratic presidential hopeful, and his wife, Elizabeth. Scott, a Republican from a Republican family, became a friend of the family and soon was asked to become the baby sitter for the Edwards’ youngest children, Emma and Jack.

Scott cared for the kids during much of the summer, especially while their parents were on the road campaigning.

“I love the family,” Scott said. “And I love the kids. Elizabeth Edwards is probably the smartest person I have ever met. She can talk to you about anything. And I love their relationship. John and Elizabeth have a neat marriage. They take walks together, talk to each other. It’s great.”

But will he cast a vote for the Democrat?

“I can’t vote for him in the primaries, but if he wins the nomination I’ll definitely vote for him in the general election,” Scott said. “And the No. 1 reason why is his character. When I’m around him it’s hard to explain but there’s a sense of trust with him. You trust him to do what he believes is best for this country.”

Now Scott wants to serve his country.

Early in his Navy career, he will transfer from Pensacola Naval Air Station to Whiting Field near Milton next month for helicopter training.

The Indianapolis survivors are thrilled that he joined the Navy.

“I think that’s great,” said Harlan Twible, 85, of Sarasota. “He met a lot of shipmates, and I’m sure they helped influence him.”

Definitely, Scott said.

“It’s an incredible feeling and honor to serve my country,” he said. “I know it sounds cliche, but I want to serve like my heroes on the Indianapolis. It’s kind of a neat ending to the story that goes back however many years it was when I started the project. Now I get to serve in the Navy like they did.”

He’s still mild-mannered, peppering his speech with polite “Yes, sirs” and “No, sirs” a trait that Letterman expressed admiration for during Scott’s second appearance on the show in 1998.

“He had to mature extremely fast,” said his father, Alan Scott. “He’s very mannerly and I think that makes an impression on people. With all he went through at such an early age, well, he was an extremely young person in an adult world. His mother (Leslie Scott) and I are very proud.”

Scott’s sense of duty has not faded with adulthood. Even though the Navy dominates his time now, Scott also is looking to volunteer in his hometown, hoping to make a difference locally.

Pensacola High School teacher Terry Benson said her former student has volunteered to help tutor athletes this year.

“He is a role model for other students,” Benson said. “He always wanted to help make others better. And he would always go beyond what was required of him.”

His friends said that despite being in the spotlight for much of his young life, Scott has remained humble, even fun-loving.

“He never let any of it go to his head,” said Buddy Burks, 22, a lifelong friend who is an engineering student at the University of Florida. “He’s probably one of the most grounded people I know. He’s the exact same person he ever was. He never talks about what he accomplished unless he is asked. If you didn’t know it from somewhere else, you probably wouldn’t hear it from him.”

Burks said that despite Scott’s dedication to mission be it a school project or military service he also has a quirky side that most don’t know about.

“He’s really funny,” Burks said. “He likes to have a good time. He’s a good dancer and loves to play practical jokes on people.”

Scott once shaved his roommate’s head bald while at UNC, Burks said.

“He can be very dedicated,” Burks said. “But he also has a great sense of humor.”

Still, most will think of him as the precocious youngster who worked to rewrite history and who helped save a man’s and a ship’s honor.

Many Indianapolis survivors and civilian researchers had worked years to clear McVay. And although there were many people responsible for doing so, many credit Scott for bringing about so much media attention.

“His desire was to get the story out,” Twible said. “And when he did, the media picked up on it and there was more interest. He was a lot more inquisitive than most kids his age.”