Former New Paltz High School student David Doyle shares his story of dropping out of school and signing on to a career of military service

On any given day, David Doyle makes decisions that can ripple out to much of the U.S. Navy. Doyle’s command at the Norfolk naval base is over only about 800 sailors, but as officer in charge of the Fleet Readiness Center Mid-Atlantic, the influence of that command has a great reach. Fleet readiness is ensuring that ships and planes used by naval personnel are ready for combat. It’s a responsibility that some who knew Doyle here in New Paltz as a troubled immigrant kid who dropped out of high school might scarcely believe. It’s a story Doyle volunteered to share — with some prodding from Cora Smaldone, Doyle’s perennially proud aunt — while visiting town for Thanksgiving. 

Doyle was born in Ireland as the country headed into a long economic downturn that stretched from about 1980 until 1995. It was bad enough for the family to emigrate, joining Aunt Cora to get a fresh start in New Paltz, in the United States. The family arrived on July 6, 1987, and the flags still hanging all over the airport made it seem like the American dream come alive. Oldest of three children, ten-year-old David was plunged into an American middle school in short order. Not long after that huge life change, Doyle’s parents separated. The three kids and mother lived in a two-bedroom Colonial Arms apartment. There wasn’t room in the family budget for allowance to speak of, and David pursued many of the classic New Paltz jobs: raking leaves, shoveling snow, and collecting empties were the focus until it was possible to steady work at Convenient Deli, and eventually Mohonk Mountain House. New Paltz had certain temptations, too: by high school, Doyle’s money was being spent on partying, and as the fun rose, the grades fell. Looking back, Doyle sees a young person who was struggling to process massive changes like immigration and divorce, and didn’t have the right tools or the right help. Eventually, that imbalance led to a fateful decision: not seeing the value in graduating, Doyle dropped out of high school halfway through senior year.

Life was fun for a time, but before all that long Doyle was looking around at coworkers in their forties and wondering if a life of serving meals and mowing lawns was all that lay ahead. Maybe that would have been the case, but for another decision Doyle had made even earlier, to sign on for the delayed entry program into the U.S. Navy. That agreement was made on the expectation that service would begin after high school graduation, but that plan didn’t have to be scuttled if the school principal confirmed that Doyle had attended for 12 years. Doyle’s mother showed up at the principal’s office with the intention to stay until that letter was signed. Doyle’s naval career began in January, 1996. 

Figuring out a path through a massive military bureaucracy isn’t always easy for a teenager, and when it came time to determine a permanent post, Doyle was given three minutes to flip through a stack of job descriptions and pick one. The one that involved “ejection seats” stood out, and Doyle was off to become an aviation structural mechanic at Naval Air Station Lemoore, working on F-18s for a training squadron. While the intent was to “grow up a little” and then return home after four years, Doyle came to realize that by paying attention to the advice of a series of mentors, staying enlisted had better prospects than returning to New Paltz. That’s why Doyle was at sea when the USS Cole was bombed in 2000. A career path as a non-commissioned officer seemed to be unfolding, even as war began in the Middle East. 

Naval officers must be U.S. citizens, and nearly always must have a high school diploma. Doyle had neither of these, but discovered that the path of officer on the aviation maintenance track didn’t have that education requirement, due to the specialized training required. When a superior reviewed Doyle’s service record and strongly encouraged applying to an officer training program, though, that citizenship issue had to be addressed quickly. Fortunately for Doyle, there are accelerated programs for those who have been in the military long enough. 

Completing high school was a point of pride. It would have been easy to take the general equivalency diploma test, but Doyle opted instead to finish classes on base for that diploma — while also taking classes for an associate’s degree. Doyle walked the stage in Lemoore high school purple as a life lesson for two young children: you can always go back and try to correct a mistake. A few months later came that first college degree, but it took years to get a shore posting long enough to study for an MBA in logistics. 

Coming up through the ranks, Doyle is grateful for having many mentors, and has paid that kindness forward. Military service is something Doyle now sees as not only a career, but as a way to give back to a country where a better life was possible. Much of what Doyle gives back is through dismantling barrier that make it more difficult to work through the ranks and stay in the navy at all. Doyle has advocated for more flexible tours of duty, allowing for the possibility of obtaining needed education, and also to consider planning a family. The industrial nature of a naval ship makes it unsafe for anyone who is pregnant to stay on board for the long haul, and that fact can impact the path of a career by making it hard to secure the job experience needed to advance. Within Doyle’s scope of command and community of maintenance specialists, it’s now possible to get a land posting for up to three years that won’t derail professional development in that way. Shaping the path of promotion by introducing more options has become a hallmark of how Doyle moves through the naval world. 

“It’s been amazing to help people who come up after me.” The military, Doyle believes, is “one of the last remaining meritocracies,” and that’s something new recruits hear from this now-grizzled commander: I started without so much as a high school diploma. If you apply yourself, the sky’s the limit. 

Leaving New Paltz in 1996, Doyle felt like something of a failure. It turned out that this high-school dropout was actually an excellent student of life: pay attention, listen to those who have what you want to achieve, and apply yourself to those lessons. Maybe some of Doyle’s fellow students in New Paltz wouldn’t recognize the result, but it’s a safe bet that the teachers who had this Irish kid in their classes would not be surprised that it turned out well.