It took 37 years, but the long wait was worth it in the end when brothers Raul and Louis Sierra finally reunited.
The reunion took place this month when Army Command Sgt. Maj. Raul Sierra returned from his nine-month deployment in Kuwait. His brother, Army Sgt. Louis Sierra, was waiting for him, and got a kick out of meeting his brother as an adult. "We're like grown men now," Louis told ABC News. "You're meeting a grown man, but that's also your blood brother."
The pair, along with another brother and a sister, last saw each other in Brooklyn in the 1970s. They were taken from their parents, who abused drugs and alcohol according to Louis, and all fell out of touch. Eventually, Raul began to find relatives, but no one ever knew what happened to Louis until around 2008, when Raul found him on Myspace. They made plans to meet, but deployments always got in the way until now.
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After being away from each other for so long, they were surprised by how natural it felt to chat. "It was like talking to another Army buddy that I know that I hadn't seen in a long time," Raul said. "He's not just my brother in uniform. He's my brother-brother." Louis and Raul both hope to have a similar reunion with their other brother and sister, but won't focus on the negatives. "Regardless of what happened to us as kids, there's no on to blame here," Raul said. "I would trust him with anything now like I trust any of my brothers and sisters in service."
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