FALMOUTH, Mass. — Kevin Doyle served his country for 30 years in both active and reserve service in the Marine Corps, retiring as a colonel. 

 

His dad was a highly decorated lieutenant commander in the Navy in World War II and his son, Brian, served in the Army for 23 years. 

 

Doyle grew up in Arlington and attended Arlington High School. In 1963, he received a Navy ROTC scholarship to the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester and was commissioned in 1967.

 

He shared a very powerful story of when he was attending Vietnamese Language School in Washington, D.C., the day the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. 

 

"It was kind of eerie, the whole sky darkened, buses were belching black smoke," he said. "It was like a Hollywood production. A bunch of us were leaving school and I said we should grab a cab. There was an African-American staff sergeant who said, 'I don't think you should do that today.'"

 

In 1968, Doyle was sent as an adviser to the Regional Forces in Vietnam, where he commanded troops during the war. 

 

He offered this on being away for the holidays: "You get wistful, my family sent me Christmas stockings and I kept them. I went to church in the compound and when I came back to my tent, there was a mist in the air," he said. "I closed my eyes and pretended it was snow."