Vietnam Veterans, twin brothers turned TikTok stars find their purpose

NORTH CAROLINA (WTVD) -- The Haneline twins are North Carolina natives. Since they were kids, they've always sang and played music together whether it was in front of their church congregation or a concert hall.

But social media is helping them reach a whole new audience and find their true purpose in life.

Double the dancing, double the costumes and double the fun.

"I'm Wayne with the whiskers. And I'm Dwayne without the whiskers," the twins said.

When you see the 76-year-old Haneline twins on TikTok with 1.9 million followers and millions of views it's easy to see they're natural born performers, but this is their second act.

"We were in California going to be stars, right? And come to find out, we got that letter that said, 'Greetings!' Give me that guitar and take this rifle. So anyway, we were drafted," they said.

At just 20 years old, Dwayne and Wayne put their rockstar dreams on hold to serve their country during the Vietnam War. Still finding time to perform.

"As we were in the service on Okinawa we would perform at our local church. We had our guitars with us."

Fast forward about 50 years, the Haneline twins never gave up their dream of being stars. That's when Wayne's daughter introduced them to TikTok.

"She would come home and say, 'Dad, I need you to do a short dance with me. I'm going to put this video on TikTok.' And I said, 'Hunny, what is TikTok?' She said, 'Just do the dance. Do the dance with me daddy.' So I did the dance I didn't think much of it. And she comes back to me and says 'Dad, we have to do this again, this has gone viral.' And I said, 'What does that mean?'" Wayne said.

Wayne and Dwayne started their own page and it's a hit. In just two years, it reached almost 2 million followers.

"This TikTok platform is helping us reach people all over the world. It's amazing all the countries. We can't even keep up with the countries much less the states."

Reaching out to people using their own life experiences focusing on veterans, good causes and their faith.

"We don't feel like it's happening to us. It's like there's something going on bigger than we are. And whatever that is, we're going to continue as long as we can. And fulfill peoples' lives as well as ours."

The twins have their first-ever meet and greet on Saturday, November 18 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Warbird Park in Myrtle Beach, SC. To watch more of their videos, you can follow them on TikTok at @hanelinetwins.