California twins split up to attend different US military academies

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Jacob and Joshua Lowe have been known as the “Lowebros” for most of their lives.

The 18-year-old identical twins from California recently parted ways as “womb-mates,” as their family calls them, in order to attend two different U.S. military academies.

Jacob is a freshman, or Plebe, at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., and Joshua is a cadet at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in New York.

Dave and Jen Lowe adopted the boys as infants, and it was clear early on that their sons had a special bond.

They ran cross country and track together in high school, Dave said, and their scores for all but one race were within one second of each other during freshman year.

Twin brothers Joshua and Jacob Lowe running in high school. (Photo courtesy of Dave Lowe)

“It was almost as if they were the same runner,” he told Fox News this week.

The twins became interested in the military during their sophomore year when they attended a local Service Academy Night. Their enthusiasm grew when their physics teacher recognized the brothers would be strong candidates and encouraged them to apply.

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Jacob and Joshua attended West Point’s Summer Leaders Experience (SLE) between their junior and senior years, and “they came back hooked,” Dave Lowe said.

“They both knew they wanted to go to a military academy, and so they spent the rest of the summer applying for four academies - West Point, [the] Naval Academy, Air Force and Coast Guard - along with going to physicals, applying for congressional nominations and also applying for national ROTC scholarships,” he said.

Twin brothers Joshua and Jacob Lowe are attending separate U.S. military academies. (Dave Lowe)

While both the twins initially eyed West Point as their first choice, Dave Lowe says Navy's cross country coach told the brothers they had potential to run for Navy.

“That was a pivotal moment for them because up until then, they both had been focused pretty much on West Point. They decided to take a chance and switch their preference, and after going through the interview process, they found out about a week later that they both had received [congressional] nominations to both the Navy and West Point,” Dave Lowe said. “They were pretty excited, to say the least.”

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The twins received separate offers, Jacob at the Naval Academy and Joshua at West Point, and each brother accepted them.

The twins graduated high school on June 13 and the family flew to Maryland for the Naval Academy’s I-Day, or Induction Day, on June 27. Having said goodbye to Jacob, the family then drove to New York for West Point’s R-Day, or Reception Day, on July 1.

While the brother's training and academics have been rigorous, Jacob Lowe says that initially, the hardest part was being away from each other.

“In my time at the United States Naval Academy, I realized that being away from my brother, while tough, has allowed me to grow as an individual,” Jacob told Fox News via his father. “While it was definitely a culture shock not having him around, I realize at some point that I would have to part ways with him and go a separate path than him.”

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Jacob added that he experienced homesickness during the Naval Academy's Plebe Summer, “but the phone calls reminded me of the support system I had not only at the Academy, but at home.”

“While my brother is not around physically, I still try to talk with him every few days to check in and ask him about life at West Point. At home, he was the person who pushed me to be my best in academics or athletics, and being at the Naval Academy is no different,” Jacob says. “While not here beside me, he is here in spirit. Whenever an exercise gets hard or I want to quit, I imagine Joshua next to me, pushing me to go forward.

“Originally, I wanted to go to school with my brother and never considered going to college somewhere different than him,” Jacob said. “However, God had different plans for us. And so far, it has been a great period of growth for the both of us. At home, friends thought of as ‘the twins.’ At Annapolis, I am seen [as] more of an individual - though I like to tell my friends I have an identical twin at West Point! So far, the experience has been great, and I look forward to seeing him at the Army-Navy [football] game in December.”

“It was definitely weird,” Dave Lowe said of dropping off the boys at different colleges. “I don't think they had ever been separated more than one night, which only happened twice that I can think of. They had been apart from us, their parents, but they were not used to being apart from each other.”

Dave and Jen did not hear from their boys much for a few weeks and were expecting a call from both on July 21.

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“Sure enough, Jacob calls my wife's phone a few minutes into the scheduled window time,” the father said. "Five minutes later, Joshua calls my wife trying to FaceTime. We quickly told Jacob to hang up and call my phone, which he did.”

“We then were able to let each of them talk to each other by putting them on speakerphone and putting the phones next to each other," he added. "It was obviously very good for their souls to talk to each other."