Coming home from basketball try-outs, I run in the house excited to tell my brother that I had made the team. "Eli! Eli! Guess what!!" I pause and wait for a response. The house is silent. I walk by and look in his room, and then I remember. He's gone.

Let me start from the beginning. In about 2006 my brother started talking about joining the marines. Of course I didn't believe him. He was always watching movies like "Full Metal Jacket" and "Saving Private Ryan" so I just figured he had watched one to many movies. I was shocked when he and my mom starting going to the recruiting office downtown. Why was he persuing this?? I did'nt understand it and I refused to believe that my brother, my bestfriend, would be crazy enough to train to be in the war! A recruiter started coming to the house and helping Eli with homework to ensure he graduated highschool on time. Which suprised me becuase this meant he really wanted to go right?

June 10th 2007. A bright sunny day, people rushing to and from work. Everybodys life was flying forward while mine was on pause. Everything seemed to go in slow motion that day. Eli packing his stuff, driving to the recruiting office where him and all the other soon-to-be soldiers would be driven to the airport and flown to South Carolina. As we got out of the car, my mom crying histerically and me not really feeling anything I looked at my brother. Everything we had been through, we were a lot closer then I thought! He hugged me and told me he loved me. And at that very moment I got mad. How could he love me? He knows he's the only one i really love, the only person I can tell and ask absolutely anything. He knows I don't have anybody else! He doesn’t love me or he wouldn't be leaving me all alone. I forced a smile when he pulled away. He nodded and turned to say goodbye and my mother and I went back home. Still crying she went in her room and I went to mine. Why had he abandoned me? I asked myself. He betrayed me, left me all alone to face high school, my parents, and life all alone. He would never play ball with me again, never talk to me the same way... our relationship would never be the same. Didn't he know that?

As I've gotten older I've come to realize that my brother will always love me no matter what. He's been to Iraq and back and we still talk and laugh just like old times. Sure it's not the same talk but it's better then nothing. I've seen that my brother wasn't trying to abandon me or betray me, he just found what he wanted to do with his life and did it, and that's why he's my hero. Sure, he's always been even when we we're little but now I guess it's just the fact that we're both older and more mature, with him being 21 and me 15. I've learned that you can't take people for granted because they might not always be there. I know how it feels to be enjoying life and then one day everything is all messed up, and it's not fun. before, I used to ignore military commercials but now, my eyes water up every time one comes on.