It’s a story that could easily be turned into a sitcom.
Two sisters simultaneously join the Army National Guard, deploy together, retire together after over 30 years, and become roommates after buying a house together.
That was indeed the sister act of Master Sgt. Lisa Currier and Lt. Col. Lynn Currier, who enlisted together in February 1986, shipping off to boot camp on the buddy system.
Little did the two know that their decision, which was originally made solely in the interest of paying off student loans, would turn into 30-plus-year careers.
“When I first enlisted I never thought I’d make three years," Lisa, a senior logistics officer, said in an Army release. "And now these years have flown by.”
It was Lisa who persuaded Lynn, an information management branch chief, to join the Army National Guard over a potential foray into the state police department, the release said.
Before long, Lynn was fully immersed with the New York National Guard, eventually trading in her staff sergeant chevrons for brass.
“I always wanted to be more assertive and more in control of things,” Lynn said. “I felt the only way that was going to happen was to be an officer."
”She just wants to be the hot dog," Lisa joked.
After spending some brief years apart, during which time Lisa was working long, arduous days at an IBM office in Vermont, the two were reunited following repeated requests by Lynn for her sister to join her in New York.
“She kept saying, come over, come over,” Lisa said in the release. “I was working like 12-hour shifts and it was just crazy. I woke up on Sunday morning and decided, I’m tired of this.”
Years passed, and in 2008, the tandem deployed to Afghanistan with the 27th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, the release said.
Prior to their tour in Afghanistan, Lisa had a 2004 Iraq deployment derailed while fighting and beating breast cancer.
“We did deploy together, but they separated us after three or four months,” said Lisa, who was sent to Mazar-i-Sharif while Lynn remained behind in Kabul, a standard practice throughout the armed services to prevent the possibility of multiple sibling fatalities in one attack.
At the June retirement ceremony, with the war — and National Guard careers — now in the rear-view mirror, Lynn and Lisa were able to reflect on their experiences, many of which made it difficult to tie a bow on a lengthy career.
“When I had to take my uniform off, let me tell you,” Lynn said in the release, adding that the sisters’ time in the ranks felt "like a family."
They would know, after all.
Read the full Army release here.
J.D. Simkins is the executive editor of Military Times and Defense News, and a Marine Corps veteran of the Iraq War.
