My baby brother decided this summer that he wanted to join the Air Force, so he did. He’s currently in basic training in Texas, which is a whole lotta miles from our farm in Wisconsin. He, obviously, will not be at Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. He graduates next week, and my parents, our older sister and her fiancé will be flying down to see him graduate and spend a few days with him. Nobody else will get to see him until December 23, though.
Basically, I miss him a lot and I really want him to be with us tomorrow, but he can’t be. This is really hard for everybody – we’ve never had a family holiday before where somebody couldn’t be there. Our family’s pretty close. Not in a meddling, “in other people’s business” way, but in a tight, “I love you; you’re my brother” way. (If that makes any sense at all.) It’s tough that we only get to talk to him for a few minutes at a time once a week, when we’re used to seeing and talking to him every day.
I just got off the phone with him, and I know he’s pretty homesick, but OK otherwise. He’s going to eat Thanksgiving dinner with a local family, and I’m glad of that. I feel kind of dumb, because he asked me what I wanted for Christmas, and I forgot to ask him what he wanted. There’s not much we can do for him right now, except write letters and wait for him to call.
Does anybody have any advice or stories they want to share? Want to tell me how awesome things are going to be for him once he’s out of basic training? What can I do for him once he’s out of basic? (I know he’ll let us know eventually, but I want to know now.) I know he’s looking forward to that, too, because he wants to work on helicopter engines, but what if he doesn’t get it?
Gosh, I miss him. We don’t get along very well all the time, and have opposite personalities, but he’s my little brother. We taught each other how to swear, dammit. We have attempted to kill each other with agricultural implements (all in good fun, of course). Can anyone put my worrywart tendencies to rest?