Brent Sheets
Marine Staff Sergeant Brent Sheets of China Grove recently finished training his third platoon of Marine recruits at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, S.C.
Sheets, son of Richard and Wanda Sheets, reported to Parris Island’s Drill Instructor School early last year, then immediately began transforming young men into Marines.
Staff Sergeant Sheets was previously stationed at Camp LeJeune, from where he deployed to Iraq twice. He was awarded the Purple Heart in 2005 for injuries sustained in a roadside bomb.
He also earned local notoriety for proposing to his future wife on CNN during the build-up of the invasion of Iraq in February 2003. He is married to the former Amanda Grubb of Salisbury and they have one son, Owen.
Anthony Brandi
Army National Guard Sgt. Anthony J. Brandi participated in the 56th presidential inauguration Jan. 20 as part of the largest ever contingent of National Guard members to serve in Washington, D.C.
More than 7,000 Army and Air National Guard members from 31 states and territories provided the inauguration with military working dogs, consequence management planning, and ceremonial, logistics, and medical support through the Armed Forces Inaugural Committee.
National Guard members also assisted local authorities with crowd management, traffic control, and emergency services operations.
The Armed Forces Inaugural Committee is established every four years by the Secretary of Defense as a joint service organization to coordinate military ceremonial participation and support inaugural events.
Brandi, a multi-channel transmission systems operator-maintainer, is a member of the 1st Battalion, 109th Infantry Regiment based in Scranton, Pa. The guard member has served in the military for 13 years.
He is the son of Terry Brandi of Salisbury, and Kathy Peterson of Nazareth, Pa.
The guardsman graduated in 1995 from Pocono Mountain High School, Swiftwater, Pa.