Iraq and the Undeclared War on Ourselves

My stepsister had her wedding last August in Texas, so most of the family met in south Texas for the wedding. Three short weeks after the wedding, my younger brother deployed to the Middle East again. He had already been deployed once in 2005, and I was scared to death then, so when I found out he was ordered to go again, I freaked out as expected. My younger brother is a genius. In fact, he is so smart, that his own intelligence enables/encourages his laziness. I'm not smart, and therefore have always worked hard for what I wanted, but because everything came naturally to my brother, he never found the value in "effort." Anything that took effort, he would simply walk away from.

When he joined the Air Force, we were so proud of him because we felt that he finally took a step in the right direction. For so long, he would just float through life not really caring about his future. Mom did what she could, and dad did not even know he was in town. By this point, I was living 4 hours away from my family, so though I did not know the specifics, I knew my brother was wasting his life. When I say 'he's a genius,' I mean he's actually a certified genius. It just baffled us how he was not a world-renowned scientist by that point. He joined the Air Force during peacetime, so we really didn't know he would be deployed within 3 years of his enrollment. He's been back from his last deployment for a few months already and all seems well. His physical and mental health seem to be in great condition, but I think that is mostly because on his position. Since my brother is in operations/communications, he had little to no actual field combat. Of course he was trained on guns and everything, but I do not think he actually had to use them.

I was lucky. He was lucky. We were lucky. My brother, unlike other young soldiers, came back minimally scarred. As far as I know, he hasn't had any flashbacks. Maybe it was his position, or maybe his attitude, but we were very lucky to have our lazy cynical brother back in the states virtually unchanged.