It’s a small world.

Two Tamaqua graduates, who are serving the United States in separate branches of the military, were in the same place at the same time.

But it was more than 6,700 miles away from their hometown.

Cpl. Brady Akins, a 2016 Tamaqua graduate, is part of the 24th MEU Battalion Landing Team 1/8 of the United States Marine Corps.

“We were called to Afghanistan as part of the noncombatant evacuation of the airfield at Kabul, Afghanistan (in August),” Akins said.

“Mostly helping evacuees and person security toward outside the airfield.”

After his two-week stint in Afghanistan, Akins was on his way out.

“I was boarding the plane and I looked - I did a double-take and I said - I know that person,” Akins said.

“I took my sunglasses off, and I thought, ‘you have to be kidding me.’ I yelled her name and she recognized me right away, which is crazy. I hadn’t seen her since high school.”

On the same plane was Air Force Capt. Natalie Snyder, also a Tamaqua Area High School graduate. According to Akins, Snyder is stationed in Germany.

“That was her plane that she was assigned to, which was taking us to Kuwait, out of Afghanistan,” Akins added. “Her and I used to snowboard together in the ski club.”

Akins enlisted with the Marines at age 19, after attending Lehigh Carbon Community College for a year and working after high school.

“Our expectation was exactly what we did - which was an evacuation helping embassy workers, U.S. officials, U.S. citizens try to get through - and also some of the locals who had good paperwork and visas to come to the United States,” Akins said.

Akins is stationed at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

“There’s nothing what we weren’t ready for. Everything we did is exactly what we trained to do,” Akins said. “We expected to do it. We had a feeling we were going to get the call earlier on in the summer, we just didn’t know when that was going to be. We knew the country was falling, and we knew it was close by. We were planning for it, and when the time came, we were more than ready.”