A "Higher Call"

Since I was a very young child, I have embraced some superstitions and ignored others.  When walking to school I would make sure never to step on a crack.  In high school I wouldn't let anyone light a cigarette from a candle, lest a sailor drown at sea.  There were also superstitions I created for myself.

When one of your loved ones serves in the military, there is a nagging, constant worry that's difficult to describe.  You know that someone you care about is thousands of miles away, and that they are putting themselves in harms way. Deliberately in harms way.

For years, my own anxieties about my older brother's military career led to many, many arguments about his chosen profession.  I would encourage him to move into the private sector.  I would lecture.  I would scream.  I was relentless.  I couldn't understand his motivation. I wasn't willing to listen to his reasons.  To his talk of "Honor".

When he was first deployed, I stopped speaking his name.  For some reason, I thought that if I said his name aloud, I was putting him in danger.  I would avoid discussing him.  In a way, it was like he was already gone.

When I first moved to Chicago, people thought that Ianovitch (my younger brother) was the only brother I had.

Whenever deployed in Afghanistan, despite the fact that he remained mostly in the green zone, I avoided reading articles about wounded soldiers, or those who were killed - convinced I would read his name. The increasing frequency of rocket-propelled grenade attacks within the green zone was nearly intolerable.

I guess what bothered me most was that, it seemed to me, the groups who were launching these attacks were determined to hurt, maim and/or kill as many people as possible.  They didn't look at any of these men as fathers, brothers, husbands, but only as intruders, enemies, a cancer.

I read an article this morning, about an event that took place in 1943, that was so beautiful, so transformative, that I had to write this all down immediately.  I think it's best that I don't tell you anything about the article - I invite you to read it for yourselves.

As his 20 years in the military draws to a close I can say with complete honesty, I am very proud of Drew.  And always have been.  He answered a higher call.