NYC-Feature Story

Brother at War, Worry at Home

By Annmarie Turton

My house was very still and dark. I had woken up for no reason and I lay in bed frustrated, unable to get back to sleep. As I listened to the hum of the refrigerator, I heard the phone ring.

My mom was drunk with sleep and stumbled around her bedroom, which is adjacent to mine, trying to find the phone.


	A Loved One in Danger (reading/ summarizing lesson)

“Hello? Mark?” I heard her say through the thin wall. “What happened, Son? Why are you calling so late?”

‘Your Mommy Loves You’

As I heard the name Mark, I perked up in bed. Mark is my older brother and if he was calling this late, something was up. I could tell that my mom was sad and worried. My brother is my mom’s only son and he’s in the Army. We knew he had been getting ready to be deployed to Iraq sometime soon, but we weren’t exactly sure when. From the sound of it, he would be leaving in the morning.

“Son, take the name of the Lord with you and I promise you that you will be fine,” my mom said, her voice cracking. “You know that your mommy loves you and will always be here for you.”

I sat up further in my bed and my heart broke from the weight of my mom’s sadness. I couldn’t let her know that I had heard her, or that I was getting emotional. I decided right then that I had to be strong for my mom from now on, even though fear was slowly rising in my chest.

Bad Thoughts

The next morning was business as usual. My mom woke me up and I got dressed for school and ate breakfast. We didn’t discuss Mark’s deployment, but I could tell that it was on her mind.

I began to imagine all the things that could happen to him over there. Bad thoughts pervaded my thinking: What if he got hurt, or even killed? I thought about what would happen to us and, especially, what would happen to my mom. I shook my head, telling myself to think positive thoughts and everything would be all right. But still, I worried that I would never see him again, and thought about all that was left unsaid the last time we’d been together as a family.

The last time I had seen my brother was at Christmas, almost a year earlier. If he was nervous about going to Iraq, he didn’t let it show; he ate everything my mom prepared for him—macaroni and cheese, rice, potatoes, and chicken. His meal was fit for a king.

During the holiday, I started to think about war and what I’d learned about it from school lessons and the media, but I couldn’t get an accurate picture of what it was like. Meanwhile, my brother was watching college football and enjoying every ounce of free time that he had left. In the following months, he had to go to training in Kentucky and was then shipped off to Iraq.

Sadr City Calling

After that late-night phone call with my mom, months went by until we heard from him again. Not hearing from him made us nervous. My dad would say, “Markie didn’t call in a long time. Boy, I hope he’s OK.” My mom would tell me to keep him in my thoughts and prayers and hope for his safe return.

My mom’s biggest fear was getting that dreaded knock on the door from a member of the military sent to tell her that Mark had been injured or killed. I wondered how the person who had to go to the homes of the dead soldiers felt as he or she was relaying the message. It’s a hard job, and I always hoped that we would never be on the receiving end of it.

Finally, Mark called. He was stationed in Sadr City, Iraq. No part of Iraq is safe, but according to him, this was one of the worst places to be. We really didn’t know what to think, because we had never heard about Sadr City. Mark wrote me letters describing Sadr City as a notorious slum where militants paraded up and down the streets. He sent me Iraqi money so I could get a sense of what currency was like in that part of the world.

Close Calls

Every time he called home, my mom was the one who answered the phone, since it was hooked up in her room. It was usually late, and I often ended up in my usual position in bed, eavesdropping on their conversation. I could tell by the tone of her voice whether his news was good or bad. Sometimes they wouldn’t even talk about what was going in Iraq; they discussed life in general and whatever was going on here in New York. My mom knew that he wanted a friendly reminder of why he was doing his job: to protect his family and the people of the United States from evils abroad.

He was trained as a sharpshooter, or sniper, so he saw a good amount of combat. The longer he was there, the harder his work became. His calls became more infrequent.

When he did call, he always sounded tired and the situation seemed grim. Some of his guys weren’t handling the pressure of their job too well and he had to talk them out of doing dangerous things, or even committing suicide. My mom told me that he said he’d had a couple of “close calls.”

As his stay in Iraq got longer, some of his comrades were fatally wounded. He lost a total of five of his good friends in the war. I think that’s when the reality of the war hit him.

Losing close friends is always difficult, but fighting alongside a friend and watching him die must be the hardest way to lose somebody. I know that he thought that it could’ve been him. His life could’ve been gone. I don’t know what I would’ve done if something like that happened to him. A hole would be ripped in my heart so large it would be almost irreparable.

‘Soon, Kiddo, Soon’

We never talked about that possibility in our letters and phone calls. I would always ask him, “When are you coming home?” I could hear in his voice that he didn’t have a definite answer, because he would sigh and say, “Soon, Kiddo, soon.” I wouldn’t say anything more. I knew how badly he wanted to come home and I didn’t want to make it any harder on him.

In news segments about Sadr City, we watched as the anchors described the rampant lawlessness there. The Army and the Marines were having a hard time defeating the insurgents. I could tell that it was hard for my mom to watch episodes like this play out; she would always look down and take a deep breath.

I remember watching her face and not saying anything about what we saw. I just wanted the moment to pass. I never brought it up in our conversations because I didn’t want my mom to feel sadder than she already was.

Locked in a Hug

One day my mom and I were watching ABC’s World News broadcast when another segment about Sadr City came on. After the segment was over, a light bulb clicked on in my head. I suddenly realized the magnitude of war and I started to cry. I realized that this was what my brother was actually facing.

Can you imagine having someone approach you with the intent to hurt you? Can you imagine someone hurling a homemade bomb at you, or getting shot at? Watching the newscast made me think of all these things.

I never thought that I would cry about him being there. I’m usually the stoic one, and my mom is usually the opposite, but this time she was comforting me. All she did was hug me. No words were exchanged. We just stayed locked in that position until I calmed down.

While I was being strong for my mom, she was being strong for me. I realized why she never showed too much emotion about my brother’s situation—she had made the same vow to herself as I had. She vowed not to let it get the best of her, because if I saw her worrying, then I would worry too.

My brother faithfully did his job until April of 2006, when he returned to the States. We were elated. My mom, dad, and I congratulated him for coming back safely. My family could finally stop worrying about his safety. We asked him if he was OK emotionally and physically, and he said he was.

The Uncensored Truth

Since his return, the military has kept him so busy at his base in Texas that he hasn’t had time to come visit us. He’s kept us abreast of the things that have happened to him since, and he’s doing well. He’s sent us pictures of himself, since we haven’t seen him in person for three years now.

Mark is planning to visit us this summer, and I’m hoping he’ll finally tell us more about what happened in Iraq. I want to get the facts without the media omitting certain details. I think that I’m old enough to handle the truth. I want to hear his accounts of what really happens in combat so I can judge the war for myself. Knowing this would put a lot of my questions to rest and, I think, it will help my family close this chapter of our lives.

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