Larchmont brothers both awarded Bronze Star

LARCHMONT - There are 479,172 active duty soldiers in the Army stationed in any one of 38 bases across the country and deploying around the world.

Two Larchmont brothers beat those odds and found themselves in the same division, at the same Army base and then in the same mortar pit in Afghanistan last Christmas.

“It’s a rarity, I can tell you that from being in the service for so many years,” said Larchmont's Staff Sgt. Richard Pisano, an active duty soldier since 2005. “I have a lot of friends from work and a lot of subordinates and I know a lot of soldiers who have family members in the service, and it’s nearly unheard of that they find themselves in the same installation and being deployed with each other at the same time.

“And the weirdest part about it, is we do essentially the same job,” he said.

Odder even than how often the brothers have been in contact is the fact that they were both awarded Bronze Stars on March 15.

1st Lt. Nick Pisano, the younger of the pair, does not like to talk about the circumstances that led to his medal but Richard Pisano recalled the events surrounding his award.

He was stationed on the Kandahar Airfield, a major base for American military and intelligence forces as well as the Afghan Army.

"My platoon and I manned the mortar fire point on Kandahar Airfield, and we did certain things over the course of the nine months that we were there to defend the airstrip itself, the 5,000 civilians that were stationed on there and the approximately couple hundred U.S. personnel," Richard Pisano said. "We fired probably close to about 250 to 275 high-explosive type missions."

The brothers were awarded their medals on their respective bases in Afghanistan on March 15. Five days later, they walked together in formation at a coming home ceremony at Fort Drum, the culmination of a sequence of chance meetings and random encounters going back to 2011.

Richard joins the Army

Throughout the 1990s and into the early 2000s, Richard Pisano Jr. was a UPS driver making his Westchester rounds.

He felt that the job wasn’t fulfilling and joined the ROTC, the college-based Army reserve, in 2003. He became an active duty soldier in January 2005 and never left.

“This wasn’t my intent. My intent was to take a hiatus from UPS for two or three years, deploy to Afghanistan or Iraq and come back,” Richard Pisano said. “Four deployments later, here I am.”

His military career started in Fort Drum, in upstate New York near the Canadian border.

At that time, the War in Iraq was raging, which was a concern for Rich’s father, Richard Pisano Sr.

“I was anxious when he first joined,” the elder Richard Pisano said, concerned that Iraq would be in his son's future. “Being in the infantry, I know exactly where he was going.”

Pisano Sr. was right. In 2005, Richard the younger was deployed to Baghdad, where he spent the next year.

He came home in 2006 and was redeployed to Iraq in 2007. He spent the next 15 months in Kirkuk in the northern portion of Iraq.

When he returned from his second tour of duty, Richard Jr. was ordered to take on drill sergeant duty in Fort Benning, Georgia, where he would spend the next two and half years.

Brothers in arms

In 2010, Nick Pisano — two decades younger than his bother — stepped onto the Fairfield University campus as a freshman.

Nick studied history and political science. On weekends, he trained for the Army as part of the ROTC program.

“Nick joined the ROTC the minute he got into college,” Richard Pisano Sr. said. “I knew it wasn’t going to be long before he was commissioned and deployed.”

In 2011, Nick was sent to Fort Benning for Airborne school. His brother was already there, serving as a drill sergeant.

“That’s when we started running into each other left and right,” Richard Pisano Jr. said, though he was soon transferred to Washington State.

In 2013, so was Nick Pisano.

The younger brother was sent to Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington State, to complete the cadet command’s capstone training event.

That's where his brother was stationed after returning from his third tour of duty, a nine-month deployment in Afghanistan, which was where he earned the first of two Bronze Stars.

“We were hanging out with each other, and he was staying at my house when he wasn't working,” Richard Pisano Jr. said.

They were briefly split apart after Richard Pisano Jr. was sent to Fort Drum at the end of 2013. Just months later, in 2014 , Nick Pisano — now a college graduate and active duty soldier — was stationed at Fort Drum, where they've lived ever since.

"I happened to follow him along on a lot of similar training," Nick Pisano said. "I cherish it as a good opportunity that my brother and I are able to be in very similar professions in the military and go through similar training. We piggyback off each other about lessons learned, and we mentor and guide each other."

Christmas together

Richard Pisano Jr. was deployed for the fourth time on June 28, 2015. His brother was deployed less than two months later on Sept. 1. And they ended up less than an hour away from each other in Afghanistan.

For Christmas, Nick Pisano joined his older brother on Kandahar Airfield to celebrate the holiday.

"We got about 10 plates of food and brought them back to the mortar fire point, and he sat with me and my platoon we ate Christmas dinner together," Richard Pisano Jr. said. "About three hours after we finished eating, we were under fire. Rounds started coming in and around the base, and we spent the rest of Christmas night locked down in a mortar pit until the all clear was given."

The two returned home on March 20.

"The coming home ceremony was the first time I got to set eyes on them when they were back," the boys' mother Kathy Pisano said. "When they walked into the auditorium in formation, it was something that just takes your breath away because you realize that they're back. They're there in front of you and out of harm's way."