Marine sisters deployed together. Scenes include the Ryu sisters playing basketball, walking along a road and speaking with a military reporter about their deployment. Location: Iraq, 10/26/2004
(Article on the sisters no longer online, reprinted from: http://www.leatherneck.com/forums/sho...)
Sunday, October 24, 2004
Marines: Local twins have reunion in Iraq
By Patrick Wilson
JOURNAL REPORTER
Twins Jennifer and Jessica Ryu of Winston-Salem have always been both competitive and close.
They played the same sports at Bishop McGuinness Catholic High School in Kernersville, and although they went to different colleges, they each got ROTC scholarships.
The twins, 24, then became Marine officers, and both were deployed to Iraq in August; Jennifer is a first lieutenant at Camp Fallujah, and Jessica is a second lieutenant in Ramadi, about 70 miles west of Baghdad.
A few days ago, the twins got to see each other when Jessica flew 30 miles by helicopter for a work trip at Jennifer's base.
"She's always happy, and obviously working 12-hour shifts is going to wear on a person," Jennifer said of her sister.
"She was just a breath of fresh air. It was much needed."
"Just hanging out with her made me so happy, regardless of where we are, the U.S. or Iraq," Jessica said.
The twins are both in communications work and don't see combat. They said in telephone interviews and e-mails that they love the Marines and the work they are doing.
Jessica said that her biggest fear about being deployed was failing.
"I'm doing real-world stuff, and I'm actually doing my job instead of just training to do my job," she said. "The Marines out here are absolutely amazing. They're just kids, and they do a phenomenal job out here, and they do it willingly."
Jennifer said she works long hours as a communications officer supervising 37 other Marines and monitoring a communications network for Marines across Iraq. She also was deployed to Kuwait last fall.
Jessica said she is in communications-related work and oversees 15 Marines, but asked that her specific job not be printed.
The twins' parents, Jai and Jacqueline Ryu, are retired professors at Wake Forest University. They said they support the U.S. mission in Iraq.
"They said, 'Mom, we're soldiers. This is a war. This is where we needed to be,'" Jacqueline Ryu said of her daughters.
Even though the twins don't get together frequently in Iraq, their parents said they are glad that the twins can talk on the phone and communicate by e-mail.
"I'm worried 100 percent of the time," said Jacqueline Ryu, who keeps the news on "20 hours a day or more."
Jessica Ryu graduated from the University of Michigan - where her father received an undergraduate degree - with a degree in Latin, and Jennifer Ryu from UNC Chapel Hill, with a degree in communications and a minor in Japanese.
Each must serve at least four years in the military to meet the conditions of their scholarships, and both picked the Marine Corps.
"They're very competitive by nature, and it suited them," Jacqueline Ryu said.
Jennifer, who is engaged to a Marine, grew up wanting to be a commercial pilot. She worked at an ice-cream shop and as a bartender in college and said she tried to back out of the military in her junior year.
"It just didn't seem like what I wanted to do at the time," she said, but she loves it.
Their parents said they remember the twins' childhood mischief, such as when they nailed boards on a tall tree to climb it, and the time that they colored each other's backs with marker pens.
"They painted each other and everything in the room, walls, themselves, furniture, everything," Jai Ryu said.
Their older sister Juliette Ryu, 28, a chef in Ann Arbor, Mich., said she was surprised that her sisters were excited about going to Iraq. "I thought, how can they be excited? They're going off to fight a war. But it's what they're trained for, and it's what they do."
• Patrick Wilson can be reached at 727-7286 or at [email protected]
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