Flight plan East Millinocket native Jeremy Deveau piloting Marine One

Growing up in East Millinocket, Jeremy Deveau never imagined flying a helicopter for a living, much less with President Bush as his primary passenger.

It wasn’t until March 23, when he was on final approach to the South Lawn of the White House, circling the Washington Monument with the city’s glittering museums and memorials arrayed beneath him, that it struck the 30-year-old U.S. Marine Corps captain just how far he had come.

“Until I was actually there, lined up with the monuments in sight, I couldn’t believe what I had gotten myself into,” Deveau said during a telephone interview from his home in Fredericksburg, Va., on Monday.

“I wasn’t that nervous before the flight, with getting everything prepared, until we landed on the White House lawn,” he said, “and then there they were – the president and Mrs. Bush walking toward the helicopter. That’s when I started to sweat.”

Deveau is one of the pilots of Marine One, the unit that typically flies the president, vice president, White House press corps and foreign dignitaries to the presidential retreat at Camp David or to Andrews Air Force Base, both in Maryland, and other destinations.

Since joining Marine Helicopter Squadron One in July 2006, Deveau has flown the Bush family to Camp David twice, Vice President Dick Cheney from the vice president’s official residence at the

Naval Observatory to Andrews, and the press corps to Los Angeles, he said.

A glamorous job? Not really.

“I don’t know if it’s glamorous, but it’s one that we take great pride in. It’s a lot of work, and it’s very exciting,” Deveau said.

Meeting the president was the job perk of a lifetime, he said, though a brief one.

“When we landed at David, he and Mrs. Bush came into the cockpit. They shook our hands, said ‘Thanks for the lift’ and that was it,” Deveau said. “It was very cordial.”

As a pilot, Deveau tries to keep a low-key demeanor, said his wife, the former Sonia Willigar of East Millinocket, but his enjoyment of his prestigious posting is difficult to mask.

“It’s quite an honor for him. I know he loves it. I am excited for him,” Sonia Deveau said. “I could just tell he was excited when he found out he was able to come here, especially after his first flight, when he had already done it. He is not one to show that he’s really excited, but as his wife I can tell.”

Deveau lived in East Millinocket until he graduated from Schenck High School in 1994, after lettering in soccer, basketball and tennis. Partially inspired by his brother Edward, now a Marine Corps major stationed in Washington, Deveau pursued a military career.

“I never flew as I was growing up, but it was always something that interested me,” he said.

A Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps scholarship helped him attend Tulane University in New Orleans, where he graduated with a degree in economics in 1998. Two years of flight school in Pensacola, Fla., followed basic Marine training at Quantico, Va., in January 1999.

Then the Deveaus were posted to Hawaii until 2006, where Deveau flew CH-53 Sea Stallions as part of Marine Helicopter Squadron HMH-362, he said.

Sonia Deveau worked as a registered nurse in Hawaii until they had their two boys, Caleb, 3, and Cameron, 18 months, she said.

She is not terribly surprised by her husband’s success.

“He is very decisive, a take-charge kind of guy, and very, very smart,” she said. “He can make decisions under pressure and he’s a leader, so those skills make him very good at his job.”

As part of his work, Deveau flies three types of Sikorsky aircraft: the CH-53E Super Stallion, which is the largest and heaviest helicopter in the U.S. military; the H-3 Sea King; and the VH-60N White Hawk, the model most often associated with Marine One.

Most of the hard work is done on the ground, Deveau said. It takes more than five hours to prepare for each Marine One flight, with the helicopter model determined by the job at hand.

“Flying is flying. You continually have to be able to know what to do in each aircraft in the event of an emergency,” he said. “Staying on top of the ball on all three aircraft is not easy.

“One of the big things I like about it is that every time you go to work, it’s a completely different day,” he said. “I may come in on one day and have to fly the CH-53 and on the next day I could be flying the vice president to Andrews Air Force Base. It’s always different. It keeps you on your toes.”

Living in East Millinocket, he said, was great preparation for military life, particularly in the Marine Corps, the smallest of the country’s four major armed services.

“I wouldn’t have traded that for anything in the world,” he said. “It prepared me academically and I was ready to go to college. The small-town pride, where everyone takes care of each other, is very much like life in the military.” The Corps “is 175,000 people, but you are always running into people you know.”