Originally Posted by WWWP (Post 2182855)

My brother’s dead.

He was 1 of the 13 troops killed in that bombing.
My sister sent me the headlines when it was first being reported, and I threw up.
I did the math. There was 0.003% chance he was one of them.
But I felt it. I knew. He was my baby. It was too unlikely and too ironic and too tragic to not be real.
I keep being inundated with intrusive images of my baby brother being blown to pieces.
He has been stationed in Syria since Jan 2020. He was just moved to Kabul 8/16. After, of course, the indisposables were evac’d. He was a baby. But just one baby in a pile of an endlessly renewable source of babies sent in to absorb the impact of a war that started when he was 6 months old.

He was 19. He did the shotgun wedding thing and has a wife due to deliver any day now.

My family is flooding social media with right wing articles martyrizing these Fallen Heroes. They all keep saying he “died fighting for freedom.”

Kamala Harris said they saved “countless” lives. Countless because the number is zero, perhaps? Because my brother’s death is ****ing pointless?

I’m so angry. I’m so sick.
I don’t know what to do.

Originally Posted by WWWP (Post 2182911)

Assuming you live through your contract you are entitled to all kinds of benefits, vocational training/education, housing assistance, etc. You know, things normal Americans can't afford. In my brother's case he was recruited right out of high school because army recruiters roam the halls of high schools looking for kids with no better option, and they have quotas to fill. You can enroll before you graduate/before you're 18 with a parent signature, by the way. My brother was convinced he was going to train in specialized weaponry and end up some elite CIA agent based on however his recruiter spun it to him.The things kids will believe, am I right? Oh yeah, then the recruiter gets a bonus for each new enrollment. They work on commission, if you will.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/27/w...ne-killed.html

It's cute how my dad painted it. Like Rylee was some ****ing patriot. As if he himself didn't fail the psychological screening component of basic training and has been trying to compensate for it through a victim complex and romantic cowboy poetry ever since. As if he didn't push Rylee toward the Marines for the sheer badassery since childhood.

Anyway my brother made the NYT. Neat. I guess his death really did mean something.

Originally Posted by Marie Monday (Post 2182961)

Even from the photo in the article I feel like I can see some resemblance to you.

Originally Posted by Marie Monday (Post 2182989)

Yes, it's the eyes I noticed <3