SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. -- Twin
sisters, Majors Shawna O’Brien and Dawn Keasley, assumed command of two
Air Mobility Command mission support squadrons July 1.
Major O’Brien took command of the 319th Mission
Support Squadron at Grand Forks AFB, N.D., and her sister, Major Keasley,
took command of the 375th Mission Support Squadron here at Scott AFB.
“We’ve had overlapping assignments ... but this
is the first time we’re having the same type of job at the same time,”
Major Keasley said. “And it just happens to be in the same (major
command). It’s pretty cool.”
Major O’Brien comes to the 319th MSS from the Air
Command and Staff College at Maxwell AFB, Ala. Major Keasley comes to the
375th MSS from the Headquarters Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff,
Personnel, staff at the Pentagon.
The sisters began their career together attending
the Air Force Academy; Major Keasley graduated in 1989 and Major O’Brien
graduated in 1990 (having first attended the 11-month AFA preparatory
school). They did not begin their Air Force careers in personnel; rather,
Major Keasley began in security forces and Major O’Brien in air traffic
control.
After independently deciding to retrain into
personnel, the two attended the Basic Personnel Officer Course together
and graduated in 1997. Since then, both have served as military personnel
flight commanders and have worked as action officers at the Pentagon, but
never at the same time.
The two are very close to their family and continue
a rich military tradition. Their father, Joe Keasley, is a retired Air
Force master sergeant and their mother, Vera Keasley, works as the
director of family daycare at Robins AFB, Ga.
Both commented on how they use one another to bounce
ideas off of, or to help observe and analyze different situations or
problems. “We’re each other’s compass,” Major O’Brien said.
“We’re really not very different,” Major O’Brien
added. “We both care about people very much … we always do the best
that we can, because anything less is a waste of time.”