*I just wanted to post this for my brother and family. It's an Editorial that I wrote when he first entered the military.
My brother is
24 years old and has just enlisted in the United States Army.
“He was the
most beautiful baby in the hospital when he was born and all he wanted to do
was sleep,” My mother always says when talking about his birth and he was
really the most beautiful baby there.
I was five but
I remember clearly going to the hospital to see him. I stood on a little stool
and looked in the nursery room window at what my father was pointing at; a calm
serene little bundle with golden curls on his head. He just laid there
sleeping, not a care in the world.
Of all the
things that my family thought that he would be, we never thought that he would
be a soldier. I thought he would be a director or a writer for the movies, he’s
always had a wonderful imagination and he it uses too. He would entertain
himself for hours making up his own worlds that had both Jedi’s, and
Transformer’s living in huge block cities. One of his favorite things to do was
to re-enact Indiana Jones movies and add more to his favorite scenes. One time
he even tied up the little girl that my mom baby sat and left her there while
he was fighting off some bad guys.
Now he’s going
off and joining the military.
His joining the
military has been hard for my whole family. We have a big close nit family,
made up of my mom’s brothers and sisters. Being so close, this has affected
them as well, not just the immediate family.
When people
find out that my bother has joined the military they always say, “I didn’t know
that your brother supports Bush and the war in Iraq.”
Well, his joining
the Army has nothing to do with Bush or the war, in fact my brother is against
Bush and the war, but he joined to protect his family, America and to further
his career. People always assume that when anyone joins the Army that they are
joining for those reasons, they never look at the whole picture or the person.
And they hardly ever look at the family who is left behind.
This has been
one of the hardest things for me to deal with. My brother has always been there
and he is the one person that I have always just been able to hang out with,
without having to worry about anything with. Especially lately, he has become
not only my brother but my best friend. He makes me laugh and I can talk to him
about anything and everything. He has become my daughter’s adopted father when
her birth father wouldn’t step up to the role and for that I am thankful. She
really loves him and there is no one in her tiny world who compares to him not
even me, to her he is the sun.
My mother has
taken this hard too. She adores my brother after all he is the youngest of us
all. As usual though, she is taking it in stride ready to deal with anything.
It has to be hard to be sending her child off to the military.
My sister and
her husband recently moved back from Hawaii after living there for 2 ½ years.
She has been spending as much time with him as possible before he leaves for
basic training. The two of them are very close and are close in age as well.
They love being together. She is very upset that he is going into the Army,
because it is something that she didn’t want him doing, especially with the war
going on, but even before she thought going into the Army was crazy.
Our extended
family is very sad and worried about him going into the Army. Everyone will
miss him and have some void now that he is leaving. He has meant something
special to everybody. My Uncle Jim has always been close to my brother, looking
after him like he was his son more than just his nephew. When my brother was
little my uncle used to take my brother with him quite often and my brother has
always enjoyed his time with my uncle.
The war in Iraq
is something that we all think about it, but we never say anything. I think
that the hardest thing about him going into the Army isn’t his leaving for boot
camp, but that we don’t know where he is going. That’s the scariest part, the
not knowing. All you can do is hope.
