Scott McCoy

Scott Charles McCoy was born and raised in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. His father, Ray, was an Irish-American auto mechanic and former U.S. Army military policeman. His mother, Wilma, was a bus driver of Cherokee Native American ancestry. After McCoy graduated from high school, he went on to Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. As an Army Reserve Officers Training Corps cadet, he attended and graduated from the U.S. Army Air Assault School the summer before his senior year. McCoy graduated from Texas A&M with a Bachelor of Science in Applied Mathematics and a commission as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army via ROTC.

While at Texas A&M, he decided to become an infantry officer. Upon completing the Infantry Officer Basic Course, McCoy attended the U.S. Army Airborne School. After earning the Basic Parachutist Badge, he was then assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division as a rifle platoon leader within the 1st Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment. McCoy later earned the Ranger Tab at the U.S. Army Ranger School. Soon afterwards, he went through Ranger orientation training and was then assigned to the 75th Ranger Regiment as a ranger platoon leader in the 3rd Ranger Battalion. Eventually, McCoy rose to the position of a ranger company executive officer. After he was promoted to Captain, he became the assistant battalion operations officer. McCoy was made a ranger company commander after attending the Infantry Officer Advanced Course.

A little while later, he applied to join the United States Army Special Forces. After completing the Special Forces Assessment and Selection Course, McCoy was accepted into the Special Forces Detachment Officer Qualification Course at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center. Upon completing the entire training process, he was assigned as a detachment executive officer to the 2nd Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group. McCoy eventually became a detachment commander. He later attended the Assessment and Selection Course for the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta. Upon successful completion of the course, McCoy went on to the Operator Training Course and then joined Delta Force as an assault troop commander.

His first mission as a Delta Force operator was a daring hostage rescue. A group of terrorists had hijacked American Travelways Boeing 707 Flight 282 that was on a flight from Cairo, Egypt to Athens, Greece to Rome, Italy and then to New York City. Taking all passengers and crew hostage, the group, the New World Revolutionary Organization, led by Abdul Rifi, forced the plane's captain to fly the plane to Beirut, Lebanon, where they made demands to the U.S. government that, if not met, would result in the death of the hostages.

During the crisis, they separated the Israeli passengers from the Americans. When the plane landed in Algiers for refueling, the terrorists brought a dozen additional henchmen on board and released the female hostages and children. Meanwhile, McCoy's assault troop was deployed to resolve the crisis. Once the female hostages were evacuated, they launched their assault, only to discover too late that there were additional hijackers and inadvertently alerted the terrorists. Abdul killed one hostage, a U.S. Navy diver named Tom, taking the other two U.S. divers with them as well as dozens of male Jewish passengers on board to Beirut. The Delta Force team gave chase to rescue the remaining hostages.

Upon landing in Beirut, the terrorists gathered their hostages and transported them to a militant-controlled area of Beirut. Using a sympathetic Greek Orthodox priest, Israeli Army Intelligence prepared an operation to free the hostages. In a prolonged campaign against the terrorists, McCoy's assault troop bided their time to identify the terrorist leaders and the location of the hostages. Once their location was discovered, the Delta Force operators assaulted the terrorist holdout, freeing the hostages and evacuating them to the airport. During the battle, McCoy and his team hunted Abdul and his men down, killing most of the militants before Abdul shot McCoy's second-in-command, Sergeant First Class Pete Peterson, gravely injuring him. McCoy chased Abdul and tracked him down to an abandoned home. He then engaged him into a vicious hand-to-hand fight, breaking Abdul's arm. As the terrorist leader prepared to shoot McCoy, he was killed after McCoy launched a rocket into his car.

With the hostages and rescue teams secured, the McCoy's Delta team seized Flight 282 by secretly infiltrating the airfield through a cotton field. Using silenced weapons, the Delta team assassinated the terrorist guards including the last hijacker and saved the crew, ordering them to fly to Israel. The team boarded the plane with all of the hostages, taking off just as McCoy was the last one to board the plane after having destroyed several terrorist jeeps on the runway with his motorcycle armament. On board the team tended to the wounded passengers and SFC Peterson who was now dying. After having confirmed that the hostages were safe and en route home, Petersen said his farewells to McCoy before succumbing to his wounds. In the main cabin the ex-hostages and Delta operators joined together in a rousing rendition of "America The Beautiful", not knowing about Peterson's death. In Israel, the plane landed safely and the hostages were greeted by their families, while Delta Force disembarked with Peterson's body in tow. The team concluded their operation and departed for the United States amidst celebrations by the people.

Since then, Major Scott McCoy and his Delta Force team have engaged in multiple clandestine and covert missions deemed unsuitable and too risky for standard military forces. In doing so, they have proven themselves to be some of the most extraordinary special operations soldiers within the United States Armed Forces.

Note

• A version of this character, portrayed by actor Chuck Norris, appeared in the 1986 film The Delta Force and the 1990 film Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection.