June 10, 2012
By Mark Rickert, Baltimore Battalion
FORT MEADE, Md. — The U.S. Army drew a deuce when brothers Zachary and Matthew Murphy, both 17, seniors at Winters Mill High School, took the oath of enlistment at the Fort Meade Military Entrance Processing Station just like countless young Americans before them.
What makes their story unique is a matter of identical DNA.
As identical twins, Zachary and Matthew share a lot in common. For starters, they’ve got the same face, the same thick black hair, and for the most part, the same eyeglasses. They share the same age (Zachary is technically older by a few minutes), and the same build, (Matthew is taller by an inch or so).
The twins look so much alike, in fact, that their recruiter Sgt. Anthony Greer with the Baltimore Recruiting Battalion admitted he had some trouble at first with keeping their individual packets in order.
“I kept getting confused,” said Greer, who found himself mixing Matthew’s documents with Zachary’s documents, and vice-versa. “But then I learned how to distinguish the two.”
Greer had a simple trick for this: Zachary is the plain T-shirt guy, while Matthew wears T-shirts with a little more flash, like snarky phrases and comic book icons.
But what makes them doubly admirable is a shared desire to serve their country. Their parents are more than partially responsible for their instilled values. From the beginning, mom and dad taught them the importance of selfless service and the reward of hard work.
“We were raised with this idea that you should always do for the people first and do for yourself second,” said Zachary, who is slated to leave in October to become a military police officer in the Army Reserve. “This is something I felt I should do. Not out of pride, but out of a sense of duty. To give back to the country is a great honor to me.”
Matthew said that dad drove into their heads a take-charge attitude.
“Good things don’t come easily,” said Matthew, who leaves for basic in November to become a quartermaster chemical repair mechanic. “You can’t [rely on] miracles, dreams and wishes. You have to take a chance and make something of your life.”
But in the end, it was Mom who brought the Army to the boys’ attention when she learned that Army recruiters would be visiting Winters Mill High School, said Zachary.
The twins met with the recruiter during lunch the following day. Greer, with the Westminster, Md., recruiting station, spoke at length about the Army and what the twins could expect to gain from Army service. By dinner that evening, Matthew and Zachary had reached the decision to join, and they revealed their plans at the family dinner table.
“Mom and dad were happy to hear it,” said Matthew. “They’re happy to see we are doing something responsible and important with our lives.”
One last truism about twins: they often share a deep familial bond. This is especially true with Matthew and Zachary, who have never spent more than a week apart. According to Matthew, being separated from his brother is actually painful, and that’s going to make the coming months difficult when they leave for basic training at different times.
“I’m glad my brother decided to join,” said Matthew, who first arrived at the decision to join the Army. “I didn’t really want to do this alone. So this means a lot to me.”
Needless to say, their decision to join the Army is bittersweet. But the time apart will pass, and at the end of the day, the twins will share not only physical characteristics but also the same uniform, and this will truly make them brothers in arms.
“We’ve never been rivals,” said Zach. “We’ve always been there to support each other. So it [makes sense] that we’re joining the same team. And it definitely makes me more confident in my decision.”