Quick note...

My brother is in the desert. Are they trying to pretend the mojave is comparable to Iraq? Bah. I just looked at a picture of him he uploaded onto facebook (I would not put his pictures on here cuz I wouldn't want any of my opinions to reflect on him) and its got a nice clear view of our last name on his chest. Sigh. He sent me a pic of him in his marine uniform, you know the one with the white hat? Thanks to all who gave me something, but that was my favorite birthday gift by far. I've been meaning to write about him since then, but I couldn't bring myself to. I don't want him to get hurt before I even get to know him better. I hate for my mom to ask me if I've talked to him. I know she cares about him as if he were her own, and that's not why I hate it. I'm glad she cares for him. She always said "there's no such thing as a half brother." Its the fact that she's the only one who does, and when she does I want to start ranting and raving about Bush, this war, the fact that his mom moved away with him, that my dad didn't keep up with him (and probably still doesn't know he's in the military), about the cost of college, about all the things I can't control that put my brother in the desert. About the fact that he's brave enough to put his life on the line so he can better himself and be the best man ever to come out of our dad's side of the fam (he's already got a nice lead). And I can't take myself through that so I say he's fine, I talked to him last week. Do you know that the rate of suicides are so much higher for veterans than any other group? I used to think about him dying. Now I'm thinking about him surviving. Losing a limb. Brain trauma. Shell shock. On and fucking on. Memory loss. Blindness. My uncle Gene is legally blind from Vietnam. He's also very crabby, though we know he loves us. how much of that anger is from a pointless war? Does he still wake up with vivid memories of the things he saw when he could still see? When you think of things on this level, how can someone stand behind a person who says "as long as it takes"? More like, "as long as its not me." cuz its not. Its me. Its my brother. My friends. My childrens' friends parents. The woman who lost her memory from a car accident and has to be continuously reminded that her son died in Iraq.

I've gone off on a tangent. I'm sorry. But this is real and it hurts. I just want it to be over. Don't ever wonder why I feel so strongly about voting. Why I feel so passionately about the things I do. Cuz these are all the thoughts that come along with it.
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