Note: The following appears in the Furman football gameday program.
George Bresnihan and Louis Mitchell were a couple of nine-year-old rascals when they first crossed paths on the suburban streets of the West Ashley area in Charleston, S.C. in the late 1970s. It was a time when parents of young boys bursting with energy could release them out into the community without fear, and it was inevitable the two would bump into each other.
What was not assured was a friendship that would endure 45 years (and counting) and carry them both to the highest echelons of military service.
As youngsters, they were outside constantly, tearing through the suburban streets of West Ashley on their bikes, playing basketball and football or doing laps and checking out girls at the local roller-skating rink.
“Sports, music and girls are what brought us together,” said Bresnihan, whose father, George, was a veteran of the Vietnam War who retired from the Navy and then worked in the private sector.
Bresnihan’s mother, Marguerite, taught high school for 30 years and is a fourth-generation Charlestonian.
“Most who knew us back then will tell you if they saw one of us, they saw the other,” said Bresnihan of Mitchell.
“We were almost always outdoors,” stated Mitchell, whose father, Louis Sr., was also in the Navy before becoming a nuclear machinist in the Charleston Naval Shipyard, and his mother, Wilma, worked as a civilian for the Air Force.
The two young men kept each other moving forward and excelled in school. They took it upon themselves to apply to Clemson and started their journey as students in 1987.
They moved into Johnstone Hall together as undergraduates and remained roommates for the next four years, eventually moving to Calhoun Courts and then an apartment off-campus. Mitchell completed the ROTC program, graduated with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering in 1991 and commissioned into the Army Reserve. Bresnihan left the ROTC program after two years.
“I wasn’t quite ready to make the commitment,” stated Bresnihan.
Bresnihan earned a bachelor’s degree in management in 1992, returned to Charleston and spent 18 months working in the private sector before deciding he was ready to commit to something bigger than himself. With his father’s encouragement, he applied for and was accepted to Navy officer candidate school and received his commission in 1994.
For the next 30 years, the two men steadily climbed the ladder of their respective services, always leaning on each other through the hard times, including multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan for each. Both men also continued their education with gusto, as Bresnihan earned master’s degrees in business administration from Webster and military strategic studies from the Air Force’s Air Command & Staff College. Mitchell earned certifications as a registered professional engineer (PE) and certified public manager, as well as a master’s degree in strategic studies from the Army War College.
When challenges presented themselves, each man knew his counterpart was just a phone call away.
“There was never any competition, only encouragement,” explained Mitchell, who retired from the North Carolina Department of Transportation after 29 years and now works as a senior vice president for Volkert Inc., a national engineering firm. “The military culture is what it is. Only people who are in it can really understand it. Having a comrade who can give you a different perspective and understands the culture has meant so much. When we misstepped, we would correct each other’s azimuth as colleagues and friends.”
Today, both men wear stars on their shoulders…Bresnihan as a rear admiral in the U.S. Navy and Mitchell as a brigadier general in the U.S. Army Reserve.
“That’s improbable in and of itself,” said Bresnihan, who is currently serving as commander, Defense Logistics Agency, Energy at Fort Belvoir in Virginia. “If you take two little kids from the same neighborhood in Charleston and fast forward 30 years, I don’t know what those crazy odds are that we would both become one stars. There are so many things that could have gone wrong.”
One thing they had in their favor was having a friend with the same ambition and work ethic making his way up the military ranks right next to him.
“I know I can call Louis if I need something, and vice versa,” remarked Mitchell, currently the deputy commanding general for operations, 416th Theater Engineer Command in Darien, Ill. “If Louis is spending time in Charleston and my parents need anything, he’s there, and I don’t find out until afterward.”
When Bresnihan thinks about himself and his friend, he sees two young men who were hard workers and big dreamers who lifted each other up. When it came time to pin the ranks of general and admiral on, Bresnihan and Mitchell acted as master of ceremonies for the other’s promotion.
“In many ways, what motivated us was never wanting to disappoint each other,” added Bresnihan. “You never want to let your boy down. That translated directly to pride in each other’s accomplishments along the way in the military. When Louis made one star, that was it for me. I was fine if I didn’t get it, because we had already made it.”
