|
The winter holiday season has begun and is filled with pumpkin
flavored coffees and jolly Christmas carols. This time of the year,
lines of passengers at the airport and creeping freeway traffic
becomes concentrated with travelers doing their best to be near
their loved ones.
During a time when we make special time to
enjoy our families, most do not realize that there are many who will
be spending their holidays making memories with an extended military
family.
For a very lucky few, their loved ones are also part
of their military family.
Joel and Timothy Seppala, natives
of Hayti, S.D. and brothers in the ultimate sense, share a bond not
only as siblings but also brothers-in-arms.
|
July 26, 2016 - U.S. Army Maj. Joel Seppala (right), a future
operations planner, and Sgt. 1st Class Timothy Seppala (left), the
senior religious affairs noncommissioned officer-in-charge with the
94th Army Air and Missile Defense Command, pose together for a photo
near the beach at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Kimberly Menzies,
94th Army Air and Missile Defense Command Public Affairs)
|
“We had a typical big brother-little brother relationship
growing up,” said Sgt. 1st Class Timothy Seppala, the senior
religious affairs noncommissioned officer-in-charge with the
94th Army Air and Missile Defense Command at Joint Base
Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii. “That means that we did our
fair share of fighting but we also had many moments where we
got along great.”
The brothers even started a lawn
mowing business together when they were 12 and 14.
“Since the
driving age in our state is 14, Joel had his own pickup
truck that we would use to haul the push mowers to our
different clients' houses. We split both our earnings and
expenses evenly.”
“The military service has made us
closer,” Timothy continued. “It has definitely given us a
better understanding of the experiences that we have each
had, both good and bad.”
“It has been a great honor
and source of pride to serve with Tim,” said Maj. Joel
Seppala, a future operations planner with the 94th AAMDC.
“It has brought us closer as family because we have
something in common that we can talk about and bounce ideas
off of each other. I have learned a lot from him as a
professional Soldier, but with the confidence that I can
also talk with him as a brother.”
Joel and Timothy
both grew up to be strong young men learning about the
significance of military service to their family.
“I
remember growing up, how my mom and dad would talk about
their relatives who had served in the military during WWII,”
said Joel.
“Military service was always important to
our family,” shares Timothy. “Both sides were active during
WWII, our mother's side fighting in Europe and our father's
side fighting in the Pacific. Our grandfather on my mom's
side was wounded in the Battle of the Bulge and his brother
was taken as a [prisoner of war] by the Nazis.”
Though they shared an appreciation of military service, they
did not realize their desire to serve at the same point in
their individual lives.
“Those individuals who served
always seemed to have a sense of duty and commitment in
spite of enormous sacrifice,” explained Joel. “I admired
those qualities and wanted to emulate them in my own life.”
“I wanted to join the military in the eighth grade. I
remember contemplating which services I wanted to join. I
initially drawn to the Air Force, wanting to fly fighter
jets. In hindsight, I was not a good fit for that type of
career.”
Timothy enjoyed “playing Army' like many
young boys do during their childhood but his decision to
enlist came many years in the future.
“I didn't
decide to join until after my first semester of college,”
said Timothy. “I was working part-time at Daktronics making
scoreboards, trying to keep up with classes and having an
active social life when things were getting too hectic. My
grades started to slip, I was accumulating debt from student
loans and I decided that wasn't the direction I wanted my
life to go. At that point, I decided I was going to follow
in my brother into the Army.”
Joel and Timothy know
by first-hand experience the impact of being separated from
your family.
“It would have been nice to have been
closer sometimes so our kids could have played together more
regularly,” said Joel.
“He first met my wife Katie,
and son, Gabriel, when he moved here in July,” shared
Timothy. “I first met my youngest niece when I went to my
first temporary duty trip to Okinawa in October of 2015.”
“There are always times in the Army when you wish you could
have family close by. We have made the best of it though.”
Imagine the joy and excitement the brothers felt when
they discovered that they might have an opportunity to be
assigned to the same mother unit and then later same
headquarters located in Hawaii.
“I was shocked,”
explained Timothy. “I contacted him when I was stationed in
Germany and found out that the 94th AAMDC was one of my
options for assignment. Since he was already the [executive
officer] for 1st Battalion, 1st Air Defense Artillery, at
the time, I wanted to get his opinion and whether or not it
would be a little awkward for him to have his brother in the
same unit. He was excited and told me to take the
assignment.”
“We were both thrilled when we found out
that he was coming to the headquarters. Even though our
family wishes we were on the mainland, they are also excited
that we are at the same location.”
The Army has
provided the brothers an opportunity to build up their
internal family dynamics while also meeting the
organization's mission.
“It is a great opportunity
for us to reconnect with one another's family,” shared Joel.
“As it stands, Tim and I get together for lunch about once a
week. We hope to get together as families often and make
some good memories while we are here. In the military,
especially with both of us serving on active duty, the time
will go fast.”
“Neither Joel nor his family have
previously had a chance to meet my wife or my youngest son,”
said Timothy. “This give us all a chance to get to know one
another and give our kids the chance to get to know their
cousins.”
The siblings are not letting the unique
opportunity idly pass them by.
“Our plan is to make up
for lost time,” Timothy explained. “It is a blessing that we
have gotten to be stationed together, the odds of it
happening again are extremely low.
By U.S. Army Sgt. Kimberly Menzies
Provided
through DVIDS
Copyright 2016
Comment on this article |
