Ten Thousand Miles To Right Wrongs – From Washington D.C. To The JAG Corps At Tyndall Air Force Base

When you meet Cecile Scoon, Esq., she strikes you as an elegant, graceful and interesting lady. There is so much more to her than meets the eye. She was born in Washington, D.C., spent several years in California, moved back to Washington, D.C. then on to Antigua in the Lesser Antilles when her dad became a Peace Corps Director in the Caribbean. The Caribbean offered a good life of swimming, boating and playing tennis. She returned to Washington D.C. to the National Cathedral School for Girls for the last 3 years of high school.

Scoon attended Harvard University on an ROTC scholarship but did the required training at MIT because ROTC had been kicked off campus in the 1960’s due to people being upset with the government and the war. She played on the Women’s Varsity Soccer team. Upon completion of her undergraduate degree, she received an educational delay to go to law school at the University of Virginia, where she met her husband, Alvin Peters.

While Scoon was at Harvard, the Apartheid Regime was in place in South Africa. Many students objected to the fact that your whole life could be determined by your race. She attended meetings of the board of directors, who would talk a “different language” about bylaws, charters and motions. Her father, a lawyer, also had that understanding of the special language. This motivated her to be a lawyer, then to use her law degree to right old wrongs or new wrongs.

The Air Force then sent Scoon to Tyndall Air Force Base for four years and ten months of active duty, where she served as an Assistant Staff Judge Advocate, a prosecutor in the elite JAG Corps, under the commander’s wing, “whispering in his ear.” When necessary, they punished airmen to maintain good order and discipline, to be a functional, efficient machine for war, in defense of the nation.

After her years of active duty, Cecile and Alvin thought, "This isn't a bad place. Let's stay, get jobs and maybe make a little bit of a difference." Scoon’s civilian law practice deals with family law, probate and estates, simple wills, and employment matters. She said, “Many people are treated unfairly because of their packaging, not because they can't do their job, but because they are thought to be too old or too disabled or too black or too much of a woman or because they don’t like your religion.”

Cecile and Alvin had three children and raised them, with Cecile working part-time while Alvin went “whole hog” on his career. She is proud and fortunate to have been very involved in whatever the kids were doing, playing sports and musical instruments. She said, “Those years raising children go so fast. You feel like you're juggling so much but in the blink of an eye they're flapping their little wings and going off to college.”