The Fourth of July in years past meant work and service for Conor Smith and his younger brother Liam. During high school, Conor put in 16-hour days as an Edgartown harbor master assistant, patrolling the busy harbor and helping to secure a perimeter around the fireworks barge. Liam worked similarly long days as a traffic officer for the Edgartown police department. Sometimes, they even caught a glimpse of the parade.

“Dad always marched in the parade,” said Liam, whose father is Edgartown police Sgt. Thomas Smith. “It sounds cheesy, but I’ve always loved seeing all the veterans marching. You get guys like Ted Morgan, and guys like that who have seen and done things that none of us can even imagine.”

It is no surprise that both brothers have now embarked on military careers. But it is a rare and laudable accomplishment that they are now enrolled in U.S. military academies.

Conor is set to begin his senior year at the U.S. Military Academy West Point, and this week, Liam entered basic cadet training at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Both schools have the strictest academic and physical requirements for entry, and each requires a recommendation from a member of Congress, through a hyper-competitive selection process based on academics and admission testing.

Conor offered his younger brother some advice this week as he left a laid-back Island for the regimented world of the Air Force Academy.

“Just do what you’re told,” he told Liam. “It’s not hard. When you start out at basic, you’re only responsible for yourself. Generally, it’s be on time, at the right place, in the right uniform. They’ll give you everything you need to succeed. You just have to do it.”

Both say a military life is not that much of a learning curve for them. Their father was an officer in the U.S. Army before becoming a police officer. Their mother, Alison Smith, a second grade teacher at the Tisbury School, played an equally prominent role in the family chain of command.

“With a dad who is a police officer and a mom who is a second grade teacher, it has always been very structured,” Liam said. “You’re going to bed at this time, you’re not going to stay out all hours of the night.”

“We were mature enough to realize it was in our best interest,” Conor said. “The biggest thing was they were a team. They were on the same page, they expected our best.”

Conor’s days at West Point are filled beyond capacity with studies, physical conditioning and intramural sports. Often the days begin with a 5 a.m. workout and end with lights out at 11:30 p.m. after four hours of school work. The amount he is expected to accomplish is one of the few things that surprised him about West Point. It’s usually impossible to get everything done.

“It’s like drinking from a fire hose,” Conor said. “You get 10 hours of work to do in two hours. It’s taught me how to manage my time, and prioritize. You have to almost triage.”

Conor is a law and legal studies major at West Point. While he hasn’t ruled out a career in law, he is leaning more toward a career in law enforcement, like his father.

He sports a military buzz cut, but his brother has longer hair. It’s far short of a shaggy mop, but still a slight indulgence during his last carefree days of summer.

“It’s almost like a playoff beard, but for the academy,” Liam said with a laugh. “I’ve always had short hair like him. I figured I’ll grow it out before they chop it off me.”

He plans to study business management, but he is definitely looking skyward.

“I always saw the Air Force as really smart guys flying planes,” Liam said. “I’ve always known I wanted to serve, it was just a question of where. I’ve always been interested in flying.”

The Air Force Academy is located in Colorado Springs, Colo., more than 2,000 miles from the Island.

“People have been asking me if I’m nervous,” Liam said. “Not really. I’ve been waiting to join the military all my life. People kind of go at their own pace here. Luckily we had that structure in our family.

His brother sees an advantage in growing up in a geographically isolated location. It has helped him thrive during upstate New York winters; West Point is in Orange County, north of New York city.

“As a plebe, and even as you get further in the academy, you really can’t leave that much,” Conor said. “You have to request permission to leave. There really wasn’t much to do around here [Martha’s Vineyard] besides play sports. When you’re at West Point and it’s the middle of February, really all there is to do is do your homework and play sports.”

The brothers say there was little in the way of sibling rivalry when they were growing up, and the profess to be best friends. Neither can remember a time when they were not pointing toward military careers.

They will serve in different service branches, and very likely in different parts of the world. But they will never be far from Martha’s Vineyard.

“I’ll miss it, absolutely,” said Liam.

“We’ll always come back,” Conor added.