HISTORY OF SERVICE
Local family’s military heritage has deep roots
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. » Two brothers who went to the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, after graduating from Saratoga Central Catholic High School, are continuing their family’s military heritage, which dates to the American Revolution.
Alex and Joseph Henel, both in the Navy Reserve, recently returned from a deployment to Bahrain, a small island nation off the coast of Saudi Arabia in the Persian Gulf.
Alex, 34, a Reserve lieutenant commander, has a full-time civilian position at the Navy’s training facility in West Milton, where he leads a 120-person crew that works on one of the site’s two prototypes. Joseph, 39, is a commander in the Reserve, and has a civilian job in the engineering department at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.
“When you’re 18 or 19, you don’t know what you want to do,” Alex said. “The Merchant Marine Academy is a great place if you’re not sure which branch of the military you want to join. You get a taste of what military life is like.” Plus, worlds of opportunity. All graduates are required to work in the maritime and/ or transportation industry for several years, plus spend eight years in the Reserve or National Guard unit of any branch of the Armed Forces, of their choosing.
Travels have taken the Henel
brothers, both engineers, to all parts of the globe.
On one voyage, Alex was part of a humanitarian relief effort that delivered grain to Mozambique, Africa. Another time he went from Oakland, Ca. to Hong Kong and China, with stops in Alaska, Japan and Guam. He’s also been to the Mediterranean including Egypt, Israel and Turkey.
Joseph is a 2016 graduate of the Naval War College in Newport, R.I., with a master’s degree in national security and strategic studies. He, too, has had many international assignments to places such as Croatia and Italy, in addition to his recent deployment to Bahrain.
Alex and Joseph both worked at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard before Alex, a Queensbury resident, took his current position in West Milton.
They are one of only two sets of brothers in Portsmouth Naval Shipyard history to qualify as shift engineers and lead test engineers. They were responsible for coordinating shipboard testing and ensuring that systems were tested properly, in a timely fashion.
The Merchant Marine Academy is in Kings Point, Nassau County. The Henels credited Spa Catholic for preparing them for life and schooling there.
“I really felt like I had a leg up on my Kings Point classmates by having gone to Spa Catholic,” Alex said.
“Saratoga Central Catholic’s community programs instilled a service mentality,” Joseph said. “Spa Catholic also advocated creative thinking, which helped me adapt. My friends from Spa Catholic were instrumental in supporting me while I was at the academy.”
The academy, in addition to a solid education and challenging adventures, exposed them a variety of interesting people.
“Astronaut Mark Kelly, a Kings Point graduate, was accepted into the space program as a shuttle pilot during my freshman year,” Joseph said. “He flew his first mission during Alex’s freshman year. Alex’s academy ring has gold in it that travelled into space with Mark.”
By pursuing military careers, the Henel brothers are following in the footsteps of their father, Captain (ret.) Jerry Henel, a Vietnam era veteran who commanded an Army National Guard unit, previously based in Saratoga Springs — the 247th medical company.
“I’ve had a family member who’s fought in every major war since the Revolution,” Jerry Henel said.
However, the family’s military history goes back much farther. An ancestor named Ludwig Wilhelm Henel was an adjutant in the Hessian Regiment Von Bose, which fought with the British under Cornwallis, at Yorktown.
From then on, every ancestor and relative has served in the U.S. Armed Forces.
During the Civil War, Pvt. Anthony Henel served with the Union Army’s 100th NY Infantry Regiment. He was captured and died 90 days later on June 24, 1862 at Salisbury Confederate Prison in North Carolina. He is buried at Salisbury National Cemetery, along with more than 5,000 others who died at this camp, primarily from lack of food and medical supplies.
Roughly a half-century later, Lt. William Henel was the first commander of the 72nd Aero Squadron during World War I. He died at 24, in 1918, one day after the birth of his baby son.
Alex and Joseph’s grandfather on their mother’s side, SSgt. Frederick B. Jones, was a B-25 mechanic in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II.
Originally from Western New York, Jerry Henel’s military upbringing began at an early age when he was enrolled in the Stella Niagara Cadet Program.
“We did everything the Marines do in basic training,” he said. “There’s no such thing as saying no.”
From there, he went to St. Bonaventure University and graduated from the Army’s ROTC (Reserve Officers’ Training Corps) program. Currently living in Glens Falls, Jerry and his wife, Patricia, moved to the North Country when he accepted a teaching job in Essex County, in the early 1970s.
With so many military figures in his family tree, Veterans Day has a great deal of meaning to him.
“It’s a special time and it’s a special day,” Jerry said. “Remembering all those who went before us is extremely important. We all need to rededicate ourselves to doing something for our country.”
Of course, he couldn’t be happier with the career paths his sons, Alex and Joseph, have chosen.
“I’m very proud of who they are and what they’ve become,” he said.