Four Children, Two Branches, One Promise
PART 2 OF 3 — SERVED: A MURAKAMI FAMILY LEGACY
Patrick Murakami is an independent insurance broker in Colorado Springs, Colorado, who specializes in serving military families near Fort Carson, Peterson Space Force Base, and the Air Force Academy. In Part 1 of this series, he told the story of his grandfather, Noriyoshi Murakami, a Japanese American soldier who served in the U.S. Army in Hawaii after Pearl Harbor, and his grandmother, who emigrated from Japan, fell in love with military life, and expected all four of her children to serve in the military before attending college. This article, Part 2, profiles those four children: Patrick's father, who served as a Navy Sonar Technician with two tours in Vietnam; his aunt, who served as a Navy corpsman (medic); and his two uncles, who both served in the Air Force — one retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel, the other as a mathematician and engineer. Four children. Two branches. One promise they all kept.
In Part 1, I told you about my grandmother's requirement: all four of her children would serve in the military before they went to college. Now I want to tell you about the four who answered that call. My father. My aunt. My two uncles. Each of them wore the uniform. Each of them kept the promise.
If you have not read Part 1 — "The Double Bind" yet, it tells the story of my grandfather Noriyoshi's Army service in Hawaii after Pearl Harbor and my grandmother's journey from fear to gratitude. That context matters here, because what the four children did was not just their own choice. It was the fulfillment of something their mother believed in her bones.
As the story has been passed down in our family, all four followed through on my grandmother's expectation. I cannot speak for every feeling they had at the time, but their service became an enduring part of our family story.
In this series:
Part 1: The Double Bind — https://www.insurancewithapurpose.com/blog/the-double-bind
Part 2: Four Children, Two Branches, One Promise — https://www.insurancewithapurpose.com/blog/four-children-two-branches-one-promise
Part 3: Why I Serve Military Families — https://www.insurancewithapurpose.com/blog/why-i-serve-military-families
What Did My Grandmother Actually Ask of Her Children?
Let me restate it plainly, because it is the kind of thing that sounds shocking until you understand it.
My grandmother told her four children: you will serve in the military before you go to college. Not instead of college. Before it. Serve first. Study second. Give back before you build your own life.
She was not a tyrant. I said that in Part 1 and I will say it again, because it is the thing people most often get wrong when they hear this story. My grandmother was a woman who had been frightened and then embraced. She arrived in America scared, and the military community gave her a life she did not expect. The requirement was her way of making sure her children understood that. Not as an abstract concept. As a lived experience.
"Serve first. Study second. Give back before you build your own life."
And here is the part that still amazes me: all four of them did it. Not one of them refused. Not one of them negotiated. Not one of them resented it — at least not in any way that lasted. They understood what their mother was asking, and they understood why. They put on the uniform before they picked up a textbook.
Who Were the Four Who Served?
Here is each of them. I will tell you what I know — and I will be honest about what I do not know. I was not there for their service. What I have is what they told me, what the family passed down, and what their lives showed me after the fact.
My Father
U.S. NAVY
Sonar Technician — Two Tours in Vietnam
My father served in the Navy as a Sonar Technician. For those who do not know what that means: he was the guy sitting in front of a machine, staring into a screen, listening for what was beneath the surface. Sonar pinging. Submarine detection. The kind of work that requires you to sit in silence and trust your ears when everything else is noise.
He completed two tours during the Vietnam War and served about four years before going to college. I do not pretend to know every detail or how he felt about those years, so I will stay with what he shared and what our family knows.
My Aunt
U.S. NAVY
Corpsman — Medic
My aunt served as a Navy corpsman. A corpsman is a medic. The person who runs toward the injured. The person whose job is to keep people alive when things have gone wrong.
I will be honest: I know less about the specifics of my aunt's service than I would like. She is not someone who talks about it at length, and I respect that. But I know what a corpsman does, and I know what it means that she chose that role — or that the Navy chose it for her. Either way, she spent her service taking care of people. That is not a small thing.
My aunt's work as a Navy corpsman placed her in a medical role focused on caring for sailors and Marines. I do not know every detail of her service, so I will leave the rest for her to tell.
My Uncle
U.S. AIR FORCE
Retired as Lieutenant Colonel
One of my uncles made the Air Force his career. He retired as a Lieutenant Colonel, which means he did not just serve — he stayed. He rose. He led.
A Lieutenant Colonel is not someone who drifted through. It is a rank you earn through years of service, competence, and the trust of the people above and below you. My uncle built a life in the Air Force. He did the thing my grandmother asked, and then he kept doing it — not because anyone required him to, but because he found something in the service that was worth staying for.
I think about that sometimes. My grandmother asked for service before college. My uncle gave her that and then gave twenty more years on top of it. The requirement was a door. He walked through it and never looked back.
My Uncle
U.S. AIR FORCE
Mathematician & Engineer
My other uncle also served in the Air Force, but in a different way. He was a mathematician and an engineer. The kind of person who looks at a problem, sees the numbers behind it, and builds something that works.
I do not know the full scope of what he did, and I will not speculate about work he has never described in detail. But I know this: he took the same path his siblings took, and he brought his own gifts to it. Not everyone serves the same way. Some serve with their hands. Some with their courage. My uncle served with his intelligence.
Two uncles in the Air Force. One a leader who rose to Lieutenant Colonel. One a mathematician who solved problems most of us cannot even see. Different paths through the same branch. Same family. Same promise.
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What Does It Mean That All Four of Them Served?
Here is what I keep coming back to. It would have been easy for one of them to say no. To push back. To negotiate. To find a way around the requirement. Families argue. Children rebel. That is normal.
But none of them did. All four served. And I do not think that is because my grandmother was impossible to refuse. I think it is because she communicated something so clearly, so deeply, that the requirement did not feel like a burden. It felt like a truth they already knew.
My grandfather served a country that distrusted him. My grandmother came to a country that frightened her. And what they built together — this family, this expectation, this identity — was not about control. It was about gratitude so strong it became a family's operating system.
"Four children. Two branches. Four different ways of serving. One promise they all kept."
My father ran sonar in Vietnam, staring into a machine, listening for threats beneath the surface. My aunt ran toward the wounded as a corpsman. One uncle rose through the ranks to Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force. The other applied his mathematical mind to engineering problems in the same branch.
Four people. Four sets of skills. Four reasons to serve. But the same foundational belief: that you give back before you take. That service is not something you do after you have built your life. It is the thing you do first, so that the life you build is worth something.
The other side of the family: My mother's side carries its own story of service. They were first-generation immigrants from South Korea. My uncle Cho retired from the Navy and, as our family understands it, continued working as an engineer on naval-carrier blueprints. I am not as close to that side of the family, so I want to respect the limits of what I know. I can simply say that service is present on both sides of my family.
How Did Watching Them Shape Me?
I grew up watching all of this. Not as a participant — I was too young for Vietnam, too young for most of their active service. But I grew up in the aftermath. In the way they carried themselves. In the stories they told and the ones they did not.
Here is what I absorbed without anyone sitting me down and teaching it:
Gratitude can become action. In my family, service was one way people expressed responsibility to one another and to their community.
People serve differently. My father served with his ears, listening for sonar. My aunt served with her hands, healing people. My uncles served with their rank and their minds. There is no single way to give back.
You do not talk about it for credit. You talk about it because it happened, and it shaped you. You do not use it to make yourself look good.
Gratitude is an action, not a feeling. My grandmother did not just feel grateful. She required her children to act on it. And they did.
Those four lessons are the foundation of everything I do now. Not because someone taught them to me in a classroom. Because I watched four people live them.
What Comes Next?
This is Part 2 of a three-part series.
In Part 3 — "Why I Serve Military Families" — I tell the story of me. How a military legacy spanning two generations that shaped a third became an insurance practice built on stewardship. Why I chose Colorado Springs. Why I believe the way you protect what matters says everything about who you are. And why, when a military family walks through my door, I see more than a policy. I see the continuation of something my family has been doing for generations. Read Part 3 ›
The story does not end with my father, my aunt, and my uncles. It passes to me. And I am still figuring out how to tell that part. But I know this: the foundation was laid by people who understood that service is not what you do after you have arrived. It is how you arrive.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which military branches did the Murakami family serve in?
The four children of Noriyoshi Murakami served across two branches of the U.S. military. Two served in the Navy — Patrick's father as a Sonar Technician who completed two tours in Vietnam, and his aunt as a Navy corpsman (medic). Two served in the Air Force — one uncle who retired as a Lieutenant Colonel, and another who served as a mathematician and engineer. All four served before attending college, fulfilling an expectation their mother set out of gratitude for the life the military gave her family.
What did Patrick Murakami's father do in the Navy?
Patrick Murakami's father served as a Sonar Technician in the U.S. Navy. He ran sonar on Navy ships and completed two tours during the Vietnam War. He served for approximately four years before leaving the military to attend college, as his mother had required. Patrick describes his father's role as the person looking into a machine to see the sonar pinging — listening for what was beneath the surface.
Why did all four Murakami children serve in the military before college?
Patrick Murakami's grandmother, who emigrated from Japan after Pearl Harbor, grew to love military life so deeply that she expected all four of her children to serve in the military before attending college. According to the family, this was not an act of control but an expression of gratitude. She wanted her children to understand service and give back to the country and military community that had given her a life she came to love. As the story has been passed down, all four fulfilled this expectation.
How does the Murakami family's military service relate to Patrick's insurance career?
Patrick Murakami's family military legacy — spanning the Army in World War II, the Navy in Vietnam, and the Air Force across multiple decades — shaped his understanding of service as a form of stewardship. He carries forward his grandmother's philosophy that gratitude expresses itself as service. In his insurance practice in Colorado Springs, Patrick applies this to serving military families near Fort Carson, Peterson Space Force Base, and the Air Force Academy, treating their trust as a responsibility rather than a transaction.
If Your Family Has Served, Let's Talk
If you are a military family in Colorado Springs — at Fort Carson, Peterson, the Air Force Academy, or anywhere in El Paso County — and you want an insurance agent whose own family has a military service legacy spanning two generations, I would be honored to help you protect what matters. No pressure. Just a conversation.
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