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My eyes focused on his crooked smile and the scar on his lip, forcing myself to remember as much as I could about him.
“I’m coming home, sis,” he told me, but in my head I thought, “No, you’re not.”
Three months later, my brother Robert, forever my Bubba, was dead. He, along with seven others, was killed in an ambush in Sadr City, Iraq.
I immediately missed his smell—body odor with a hint of deodorant—an uncommon smell to cherish, but one that made me want to bury my head into his armpit just one more time. One more time to joke with him about how much I wished deodorant would work on him.
We were a close family. All four siblings joined the military, prompting the local office to send my mother and me honorary recruiter certificates. All three of my brothers deployed overseas.
I cannot explain how I knew Robert wouldn’t return, but the others would come home. There was an overwhelming fear, a knot in my gut, and tears that fell in never-ending succession. Let’s call it sibling intuition.
What my intuition didn’t tell me was that coming home didn’t mean we were safe. It has taken me years to get to the point where I am now—a sister grappling not only with the loss of my two brothers and my best friend, one at war and the other two to the invisible wounds that plague the men and women of our military.
My brother Gilbert and I survived, but the struggle has earned us our own disability ratings.
I was the first to sign up. I joined the Army in 1996, fresh out of high school. I wanted to be a part of something bigger than myself, and I knew staying in Midland, Texas, was not what I wanted.
Then, in 1998, my brother Gilbert enlisted in the Marine Corps. He had decided that the college route was not for him, and the recruiter’s winning spiel convinced him that the military was the better path. Robert joined the Army in 1999. Then Jeremy, the baby of the bunch who was never far behind his older brothers, became a Marine in 2002.
Gilbert went to Iraq in 2003 and returned the same year. Robert was killed there a year later. Jeremy was supposed to go in 2004, but the Marines kept him stateside after Robert’s death.
It was a temporary reprieve. Jeremy was reinstated in 2008 and deployed to Iraq anyway. He was there only a few months before stress and depression sent him home.
Jeremy returned in constant pain, with a bad back and his guts in turmoil. But it was the invisible wounds that would prove the most destructive. He slept on the couch, got up at any sound to check the perimeter of his Texas home.
In 2015, 11 years after Robert’s death, Jeremy took his own life. My mother called me at work and said, “Mija, you need to come home.”
I had heard those words before, when Robert died and I drove back to find government vehicles in our driveway. This time, I made her tell me over the phone; then I fell out of my chair. Someone else had to drive me home that day.
I don’t know if your life flashes before your eyes when you die, but my life with Jeremy played in my head like an old 8-mm film when I heard the news. As a kid, he was so little that I could encircle him in my arms and run around the house so he could pretend he was driving a car. I remembered how much he loved church and insisted on wearing a suit and carrying a Bible to services.
After Jeremy’s death, I was on a crash course with what almost took my life back in 2002.
Back then, I was pregnant with my youngest child; I felt hopeless, experiencing sadness that began with childhood trauma. In a desperate moment with letters written and pills in hand, I cried out silently to God.
“God, if you are real like they say you are, SHOW ME!! Stop me from what I am about to do.”
A few seconds later, the tiny hands of my 5-year-old son knocked on the door. “Go away, son. Leave me alone, please!” He persisted, though. “No, Momma. I have something to tell you,” he said. “Jesus is here, Mom. He is with the baby, and everything will be okay!”
I crawled to the bathroom, flushed the pills down the toilet, and tore up the letters.
Jeremy’s death had sent me back to my darkness. I couldn’t stop picturing my brother’s death, but I had sworn to Gilbert—my remaining brother, a fellow veteran—that I would do what it took to stay alive. For the first time, I contacted VA.
I had served in peacetime and left after only two years, so I never felt that I deserved their services before. I told VA I didn’t know what I qualified for, but I needed help.
Jeremy’s death would turn out to be a lifesaving event for me. I committed to therapy and learned coping skills for the tragedies still to come.
One of my childhood best friends, Isaac Millican, greatly supported me after Jeremy’s death. He was an Army veteran who was inspired to enlist by the Bible verse John 15:13: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
In 2022, as he was battling advanced pancreatic cancer and mental health issues following his service, Isaac often asked how Jeremy’s death had affected me. We were having a long conversation about it, when he also asked how Gilbert and I were doing, how my kids were. “I’m glad you’re good,” he told me. Two days later, he killed himself.
I still think about that conversation. I think he wanted to know I would be okay. I think he was looking out for me.
When Isaac died, I realized it was time to share our story. It’s therapeutic for me to talk about it: If I hold this in, I’ll end up like the others.
I share my brothers’ names at events like our local Hometown Heroes nights at the ballpark. Their photos and names are on the local VFW’s and American Legion’s walls of honor. I attended an all-female Songwriting with Soldiers retreat, which helped me put my grief over losing Jeremy to song. The War Horse has given me the tools, support, and courage to tell the story I am sharing with you today.
My service wasn’t just wearing the uniform. I have a duty to speak up. It’s imperative for the world to know the true cost of service. The first thing we’re told when we enlist is that we’re signing a blank check with our lives. But we don’t take into account the aftereffects. The people who struggle and take their lives are just as important as those who lost their lives on the battlefield.
I recently spoke with Gilbert, who said his dream was to be an architect with Robert, and his dream died when Robert died. My dream is to tell stories, and I almost let that dream die too. I say that my hope is to reach out to other veterans, but my dream really is to reach my brother and get a message to him. It’s okay to talk about it, it’s okay not to be okay.
And it’s okay to pursue our dreams, no matter how much they may have changed.
On the 19th anniversary of Robert’s death, I wrote him an open letter, including this passage:
“I used to think the grief of losing both you and Jeremy was going to kill me. I feel the loss in my gut, and the physical pain at times was hard to bear. I used to long for a sweet release so that I could be near you both. I love you both so much that this life was almost unbearable without you.”
But it didn’t kill me. I’m still here and I’m not going anywhere. The long walk from tragedy and loss to acceptance and redemption is worth the fight. I will continue to share our incredible story of love and sacrifice.
This War Horse Reflection was edited by Kim Vo, fact-checked by Jess Rohan, and copy-edited by Mollie Turnbull. Hrisanthi Pickett wrote the headlines.
Editors Note: This article first appeared on The War Horse, an award-winning nonprofit news organization educating the public on military service. Subscribe to their newsletter.
