Not Exactly Out of The Water

My brother called me this morning to let me know that he's being reactiviated to the Marines, and will be deployed to either Afghanistan or Iraq. I was devastated to say the least, but as he was telling me the story I was optimistic as much as I could be for him on the phone. Of course as usual, I'm getting this information first and he doesn't want me to say anything to my parents or anyone else. I guess he wants to break the news to my parents in person. This is just going to devastate both my parents and might possibly put my dad of an edge of something. Dad's on a pretty nasty medication right now that causes depression and to be honest, when my brother was deployed the last two times, Dad didn't need this medication to be depressed.

My brother is not a happy kid right now. He's got a gret job as an EMT and a state-side first responded, and he's living with his girlfriend - They've been looking for a new place. He took the policeman's test and is awaiting the results of that. Things were going really well for him, and now this. He said if he had gotten these orders a year and a half ago he would have been fine with it, but today, after two years of being inactive, with two years to go, he is very disappointed.

He is to ship to Missouri on the 19th of this month, and then from there I guess he'll be retrained and deployed, for what he said could be 15 to 19 months. What a kick in the pants! That's longer than his other two deployments which were 6-8 months each.

I told him that this is what he signed up for, and that he'll have to do his duty, but I also understood that it doesn't make the situation suck any less. Of course that was strong Sheri on the phone. As soon as I hung up with him, I was immediately in tears. I really don't want him to go. I want my little brother to be home and safe.