Photo By Tech. Sgt. Connie Jones | 1st Lt. Zachary Conn and 1st Lt. Austin Conn, Mississippi Medical Detachment,...... read more read more
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In the military, families are the backbone of the men and women who serve. They keep morale high, supporting their loved ones as they sacrifice much of their time for the nation. In some cases, there are service members who are fortunate enough to join the military with their family. A few even get to serve with their twins.
1st Lt. Austin and 1st Lt. Zachary Conn currently serve as registered nurses together with the Mississippi Medical Detachment, located on Raymond Road in Jackson.
Some twins have separate interests but according to the Conns, they’ve generally had similar interests their entire lives.
“We're really done everything together, like every grade school class was together. We played football, junior college together, we were around the same friends. And we're just super close”, said Austin. “Whenever we committed to taking nursing as our career path on the civilian side, we were looking for a way to pay for that. So why not do the military together?”
In an effort to fund their education, the brothers, who enlisted in 2012, decided to commission through the ROTC program at the University of Southern Mississippi, which is ultimately how they decided to become officers, Zach said.
The 28-year-old twins decided to continue their education by attending the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), studying to become Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists.
“We’re currently full-time students at UAB. And we're in our clinical phase of our training so we're in the hospital at UMMC, four days a week,” said Zach.
Although they are currently working on their degree together, there was a period where they were apart during their undergraduate program. That was a challenge.
“So I actually ended up failing a class our first semester of nursing school by like a half a point, and so the way the curriculum was set up, you couldn't catch back up. And so he was ahead of me the whole rest of the time. And so that was shell shock, even though we lived together, that was just the first time we've actually had classes apart from each other,” Zach said. “And then, once he graduated school, he and his girlfriend since 10th grade got married and moved in together. And so when he got married, it was very different because I was still in school, living in Hattiesburg and he was married and working in Jackson and that was the first time we've spent real time apart. I mean, you spend 24/7 with somebody for 24 years of life. And then that changes, you know, it was definitely an adjustment, but it was cool because he started a job and I knew I was going to eventually be right beside him.”
Now that they are both in the same area, they are able to enjoy some of their hobbies together again when they are not busy with school and military assignments.
“We don't have a lot of free time being in grad school. So we use Saturday evenings, especially during football season, for getting together with friends to be able to de-stress and kind of unwind a little bit. Outside of that, we like hunting, fishing, bowling, stuff like that. But in the real world, you know, you can't do those things every day. So we do CrossFit.”
So what word would they use to describe each other?
“I'm going to say solid,” Austin said. “He's just always been there. Anytime during training, and one of us just got down or something like that, just hearing his voice or seeing him if we weren't in the same platoon or we weren't around each other at all, we’d meet each other at the water buffalo, you know, just by chance and just seeing him would give me strength. He’s always been there.”
Zach described his brother as a role model.
“I’m single, so I’m not married. So I've got the privilege of watching the relationship that he's cultivated with his wife and the relationship he cultivates with me and all of his friends, the selflessness that goes into building a family and then he’s still able to pick me up when I'm down and somebody I can lean on throughout grad school or training. He’s definitely my role model,” Zach said.
The Conns have set several traditions within their family and their loved ones are overjoyed with how much they have done.
“We were some of the first to go to college and then some of the first to join the military and then become officers. Now being in grad school, they’re super proud of us for all of our accomplishments.”
The Conns are set to graduate in April of 2022 and for now, they plan to continue their dedicated service in the Mississippi National Guard.
| Date Taken: | 11.29.2021 |
| Date Posted: | 04.05.2022 14:53 |
| Story ID: | 417407 |
| Location: | JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI, US |
| Hometown: | PEARL, MISSISSIPPI, US |
| Web Views: | 56 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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