First of all, This is Capt. Sestak, not Admiral Sestak. The retired Admiral and Congressman is a Junior. The obituary can be found in the Friday Delaware County Daily Times, which is online at DelcoTimes.com
In three years of volunteering for Vadm. Joe Sestak, I only saw Joe Senior a couple of times, but I can still say a lot about the man; I know his kids.
Capt. Joseph A. Sestak, U.S. Navy (Ret.), 88, of Springfield, a decorated Naval veteran of World War II and loving and devoted husband and father, died Sept. 6 at Riddle Memorial Hospital.
Born in Dolné Lovcice, Slovakia, Capt. Sestak grew up in Coatesville and graduated from Coatesville High School and the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. He earned a master’s in business administration from The George Washington University and a master’s in science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Capt. Sestak served in World War II, fighting in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters of operations, and participated in the largest naval engagement of the war, the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
He also fought in the Battle of Surigao Straits, the last battleship-versus-battleship engagement in history, during which his ship, the USS McDermut, was credited with sinking several ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy.
During his distinguished 23-year Naval career, Capt. Sestak also served aboard the USS Trippe, USS Louisville and USS Yosemite.
As the daughter and niece of biology majors, I'm fascinated by genes and heredity, and the rearing of offspring. A member of my church and his wife are former lawyers. When I saw their nine-month old baby, he was talking up a storm. My rector's daughter is the spitting image of her mother and both Mother and Daughter are active high energy people. I become more and more like my parents all the time. Now that I'm in my twenties it bugs me less.
When I volunteered for Vadm. Joe Sestak's congressional campaign in '06, one of the first things I noticed was how many family members he had helping out on his campaign. As I got to know the Sestak siblings, I noticed how much they had in common.
Captain Sestak's kids have a lot of stamina. Vadm. Joe Sestak has a reputation as a workaholic and his brother and his sisters are the same way. I'll go to the Acme at 8, 9 even 10 in the evening and when I walk home past the campaign office, the lights will still be on. The staff, including Richard, Liz and Meg are usually still there.
But what I noticed most about the Sestak siblings was, that despite being highly educated workaholics, they weren't focused on themselves. Many of the ambitious, well educated people I'd met previously had been somewhat judgemental and/or self centered. Not the Sestaks.
The Sestak siblings tend to be very aware of the people around them and they are some the most courteous people I know. When Elizabeth greets someone with "How are you?" she actually sounds like she means it. When the Congressman has had campaign events that I've gotten to by walking or public transit and it's ended after dark or we've been in the middle of those pop-up summer thunderstorms that we get sometimes, one of his sisters has made sure I got home safely. The younger Joe regularly made a point of thanking the volunteers during his previous campaigns.
It's the little things that say the most about who someone is and how they've been raised, but little courtesies are definitely learned behaviors. A child will have a parent's red hair, height or blue eyes, no matter what happens. Small kindnesses on the other hand are behaviors that parents teach.
Raising one or two kids is difficult. Raising more than that is no small feat. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis once said "If you bungle raising your children, nothing else matters." Captain Sestak managed to raise 8 beautiful human beings. That's definitely his legacy and no one could ask for a better one.