My Brother & The Yellow Ribbon

i've been wearing this yellow ribbon most everyday for almost a year now. i started wearing in january. i can't remember the exact date, but i can tell you it was the day that my brother left for iraq. i can say with pure joy that today is the last day that i plan on wearing it. i say this because my bother arrived at fort sill, oklahoma this morning around 11:30am.

it was hard to see my 19 year old, now 20, brother leave for iraq. not as hard as it was for my mom, dad, aunt, or grandma. mainly because i live two hours from my home town and don't get to see him that often anyway. another reason was that he wasn't going over there to be a combat soldier. he was only going to be working on a military base in taji doing misc. chores. i would say the only thing that bothered me about him leaving was how much it affected him and the rest of my family. this isn't because i don't care about my brother. i love him dearly and would have took his place if i could have. we get along quite well, at least for the past five years we have. before that is a different story.

even though he was scared and didn't want to go to iraq. now that he has been there he is happy that he did. on top of experiencing new things, he was paid a little over 30k tax free for his duties and didn't have to pay for food, rent, or utilities. i was talking to him a few months ago and he was pondering the idea of going back to iraq to work as a civilian because companies like haliburton pay big bucks for people who do, but after a while he decided that he missed home to much to do that.

on this day, the day of my brother's return, i made the decision to work instead of attending his welcome home ceremony at fort sill. i would have liked to of been there to welcome him home, but by working today i get off this coming friday. i get to spend the whole day hanging out with my brother. which i think is much better than watching him participate in a welcome home ceremony. don't you agree?