When Fathers, Sons In Special Forces, Twin Brothers Serve and Deploy Together,

Since the Five Sullivan Brothers served together and died together in 1942, the military  has been hesitant to deploy siblings together. As you recall, the five Sullivan brothers (Albert, Francis, George, Joseph, and Madison) served together as shipmates aboard the cruiser USS Juneau after requesting special permission from the Secretary of the Navy. The Juneau was sunk on November 13, 1942, off the island of Guadalcanal by Japanese submarine I-26.

Although brothers or fathers and sons serving together is rare, family members do deploy together currently. Even rarer are stories of generations of brothers serving together. Take the Molinelli family.

Brothers serve together in special forces unit, carry on generations of service

By Capt. Richard Dickson, 3rd Special Forces Group

Family members serving simultaneously in the military is rare, but even more uncommon is two siblings serving together in the same active-duty unit. In 3rd Special Forces Group, this rarity has become a reality.

Two brothers, Capts. Robert and Nicholas Molinelli, have served together in the unit since June 2018. Robert is the deputy judge advocate and Nicholas is a medical logistics officer. They serve in the same company, an element that has about 150 soldiers.

This is not the first time that siblings have served in the same unit or even in 3rd SFG. Two brothers, both Green Berets, served together during the 2000s, and another set serve together now within the unit. However, it is still extremely uncommon within active-duty units.

By contrast, there are thousands of dual-military married couples in the U.S. Army. While many married couples are at the same duty station, a vast number of them are not in the same unit. This underscores the uniqueness of the brothers’ situation, and the opportunity that serving in Special Forces units brings to service members to be able to serve with family members.

“You read these stories about how brothers used to be in the same unit, and now it doesn’t happen anymore, so it’s a little surreal sitting across from him in meetings, or standing next to him in formation,” Capt. Robert Molinelli said.

Robert is the older of the two brothers, both of whom attended high school at Papillion-La Vista High School in Papillion, Nebraska. In 2010, he graduated from the University of Nebraska with a Bachelor of Arts in political science. He went on to Lewis and Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon, and received his Juris Doctorate in 2013. He originally went to law school to practice environmental law, but after a military internship, he decided to enter the U.S. Army Reserves. He commissioned into active-duty service in 2015.

Nicholas left Nebraska following high school and graduated from Colorado State University in 2014 with a degree in Psychology. He has always had an interest in serving in the military. Upon graduation, he immediately commissioned into the Army as a second lieutenant in the Medical Service Corps.

“I wanted to get some real leadership experience and travel,” Capt. Nicholas Molinelli said. “I enjoyed growing up in a military household and wanted to serve.”

That household has an illustrious history of service from a lineage of patriotic men who dedicated their careers to serving our nation. Their great-great-grandfather served in the Spanish-American War. Their grandfather, retired Maj. Gen. Robert Molinelli, was an armor officer and eventually became the Director of Army Aviation prior to the creation of the aviation branch. He served two tours of duty in Vietnam, earning two Silver Stars and two Purple Heart awards.

Their father, retired Col. David Molinelli, was an aviator who started his career flying AH-1 Cobra helicopters and ended it flying AH-64 Apache helicopters.

“I only intended to serve for four years, but I had a great tour with the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment and ended up serving 25 years,” retired Col. David Molinelli said. “One of the highlights of my early career was flying the East German and Czech [Republic] border in a Cobra with my dad.”

He knows how lucky his sons are to be serving together and is happy for them both personally and professionally. He cherishes the moments he had to serve alongside his father and hopes for the same types of experiences for his sons.

“I think it has been a great experience for Rob and Nick to serve in the same unit. This unique opportunity to serve together professionally has enhanced their relationship as brothers and brought our family even closer,” he said.

For Capt. Robert Molinelli, it is a situation he also treasures and is grateful for the opportunity. As a new father himself, he also knows that there’s always the possibility of another generation of service ahead.

“I would be proud if he chose that path,” he said, when asked how he would feel about his son following in his footsteps. “It’s an honorable profession, something he could be proud of too.”

The leaders of 3rd SFG also put a strong emphasis on family. Family Readiness Groups and other volunteers are liaisons to the unit for information and activities. The unit has multiple “Family Days” throughout the year that help introduce families to one another, build unit cohesion and grow the support network for spouses, children, parents and siblings of soldiers.

This commitment to families is also why the Army observes April as the Month of the Military Child and November as Military Family Month. 3rd SFG also observes training holidays around other Family-related holidays such as Father’s Day and Mother’s Day, which allows soldiers extra time off work to spend with loved ones.

For the Molinellis, getting to spend time with a loved one is an everyday blessing.

“I think the coolest thing about being in the same company is whenever we’re together it’s a physical reminder that the Army is a family business in a lot of ways,” Capt. Robert Molinelli said.

It certainly is for the Molinelli family.

Identical Twins Share Deployment Together

By Sgt. Zach Mott

Private Maurino and his identical twin brother, Spc. Joseph Maurino, an infantryman with the New Jersey Army National Guard’s Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 114th Infantry Regiment, are currently deployed together to Qatar and serve as part of the security forces element for Area Support Group-Qatar.

“It feels like I got a cheat code for a deployment,” said Pvt. Matthew Maurino, an infantryman with Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 114th Infantry Regiment. “You don’t feel as far away from home when your brother’s here. Especially your twin.”

Joseph joined the Army after graduating high school in 2017, Matthew joined in 2018 after completing his first semester of college.

“I’ve always wanted to join since I was a little kid,” Matthew said. “I didn’t plan on joining so soon, I planned on going to college first. But my brother came back and I saw him in his nice uniform and I said, you know what, I might as well join up now, get some excitement going and go to college when I get back.”

For Joseph, his journey to the Army began with a properly placed pen.

“I basically was at lunch one day and a recruiter was there and I needed a pen for class and I took it,” Joseph said.

From there, the recruiter contacted him and, after some discussion about military occupational specialty options, Joseph signed up as an infantryman by October of his senior year in high school.

“A part of me always wanted to learn how to fight,” Joseph said. “I figured if I’m going to go military I’ll go guard. I wanted to make sure I’ll go to college, too.”

The opportunity to deploy together came about while Matthew was still attending one station unit training at Fort Benning, Georgia.

“I knew he wanted to go, there (were) like two slots left, and (my first sergeant) put my brother in one of those slots,” Joseph said. “So before he even was finished with OSUT, I knew was going on the deployment.”

Now that they’re deployed, the brothers, who are separated by less than 3 minutes at birth, enjoy spending time together when their schedules allow.

“Whenever he’s back and I’m back on my days off, we’ll always be meeting up smoking cigars and going to the movies,” Joseph said. “Usually we’ll just knock on each other’s door at obscene hours of the day like 1 o’clock in the morning. I’ll get over there and he’ll blast some music as he’s telling me all these crazy stories he had. That’s usually how it goes every time. Either me doing it or he’s doing it.”

The random door knocks are not the only way these Manalapan, New Jersey, natives find themselves spending time together.

“Sometimes we wake each other up, but generally we’re both up at the same time,” Matthew said. “It’s interesting with twins, especially identical twins, we actually just naturally tend to do the same things even if we’re in different environments. If he’s up at a random time, odds are I’m up. If one random night I just want to chill at the (Post Exchange) — and I never do that — he’ll usually be there, too. The odds shouldn’t be that we meet up so much in random places but we tend to always go to the same places by ourselves and meet up. I think that has to do with being a twin because all throughout our life we’ve done stuff coincidentally in the same area.”

Having family close by while deployed is an advantage both brothers enjoy. But, they also enjoy keeping connected to their family in New Jersey.

“My mom will send us snacks and we’ll meet up and we’ll bring a big thing of snacks and we’ll trade what we want because sometimes she sends us a different one,” Matthew said. “But those plants are a thing. We’re keeping it going.”

“Those plants,” are also a gift from their mom, Cynthia Maurino. She sent each twin a grass plant in a small pot with a smiley face on it.

“It’s a little grass plant, that’s all it is, but me and Joe we make sure that this grass plant is in the best conditions possible. We try to make this grass plant survive as long as possible,” Matthew said.

Once this deployment is complete, both Matthew and Joseph plan to continue serving. Matthew has his sights set on earning his degree and becoming an officer. Joseph is also pursuing his college degree and plans to join the New Jersey State Police in the future.

“You miss out on a lot, as a twin especially, when they’re so far away and you don’t have time to talk,” Joseph said. “Now that he’s here, I don’t really lose that. I’m not nearly as homesick as I would be. I haven’t felt homesick at all yet.”

Father, Son Strengthen Bond While Deployed Together in Qatar