Sad
18 04 2008I couldn’t figure out a way to fit this in the last post. But I do think it’s important to address. So here you go.
My family is military. I’ve written of this before. Both grandfathers, both parents, many aunts and uncles, cousins, and my little brother, Cody. I talked to Cody yesterday. It was the first time in a couple months. He’s a been a busy young man since he returned from Iraq. Busy catching up with his girlfriend, his friends, etc. I don’t bother or pester him to keep in touch or visit. I figure he’s a young guy, fresh from deployment, visiting one’s disabled and generally morose brother is a chore with which I shouldn’t burden him.
Cody has planned to make the Army his career for as long as I can remember. He spoke of it when we were kids. He was in ROTC in high school. He liked the Army. And he wanted to follow in the family’s footsteps, especially my grandfather’s and mine. He loves soldiering, loves being a combat medic, and could certainly use the enlistment bonus. But after over a year of watching me languish he’s had enough. He has no plans of re-enlisting. Ever. He sounded lost. For the first time in his adulthood he didn’t seem to know what to do with his life.
“Many have perished; more will.” This Auden line has been repeating in my mind over and over again since we hung up. Though Cody hasn’t perished in war, thank God, or had his body face perish as mine has - senselessly and at the idle and stain-resistant hands of ‘friendlies,’ in a way the Cody I knew is dead. Killed by the same hands that broke his brother.
