Romaine swears in 26 new military recruits in Hauppauge

Hernandez, 24, of Copiague stood with 25 other new military recruits Friday morning as Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine swore them in at the H. Lee Dennison Building in Hauppauge, where family members watched the next step in their service begin.

Most of the recruits are headed into the Navy and Army, underscoring how Long Island continues to feed the armed forces through a steady pipeline of young residents choosing uniformed service. Hernandez said enlisting represented honor and purpose, a sentiment that placed the ceremony in personal terms even as the county marked it as a public event.

The setting carried its own weight. Hauppauge is the Suffolk County seat, and the Dennison Building has become a familiar county landmark for military and veterans’ business. Suffolk says it is home to the largest population of veterans in New York State and one of the largest veterans’ populations of any county in the United States, a distinction that helps explain why a swearing-in here resonates well beyond the county executive’s office.

Romaine, who was elected Suffolk County executive in November 2023, presided over the ceremony in a building that also houses the county executive’s office at 100 Veterans Memorial Highway and the Suffolk County Veterans Services Agency on the third floor. That overlap of government administration and veterans’ support gives the site a practical role in county life, not just a ceremonial one.

The recruit swearing-in also fits a broader pattern at the Dennison Building. Suffolk hosted the American Revolution Experience traveling exhibit there from April 14 to 23 as part of Suffolk 250, and county officials previously turned the lobby into a temporary war-history museum to mark the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. Contributions from the Lt. Michael Murphy Navy SEAL Museum, Rocky Point VFW Post 6249, the Suffolk County World War II and Military History Museum and county employees helped shape that display.

Taken together, those events show how the county keeps tying public service, military memory and family milestones to the same civic space. For the 26 recruits sworn in Friday, the first step into military life happened not in isolation, but in the center of Suffolk government, with their families close by and their county watching.