NEED BROOKS NO DELAY...

I have meant to say this for over a year. And I haven't. So I'm saying it now.

My brother Caleb is in Iraq.

The brother I bullied when we were children, the brother that listened to me into the wee hours of the morning as I daydreamed about girls and adventures and growing up, the brother that played computer games and watched movies with me when our parents' backs were turned, who rose and fell and sinned and shone with me, and quietly stood in the background to my "older brother" role.

The brother that I hardly knew when I left for college, because I had just been too loud and overbearing to listen or care. The brother who then stepped into the role I had left and filled it far better than I ever had, who came into his own when my insignificant shadow fled home for a college a thousand miles away. The brother who was sorry when I was sad, rejoiced when I was happy, and always somehow understood.

The brother who stepped up to life while I frittered away my time, whether at school, over the summers, at home or during Christmas, who acted on principle and turned away from pleasure and leisure and left home to serve while I shirked what I knew I should do. The brother who, as I attempted to share my "wisdom" and "sage counsel" with him (because I still thought of him as my little brother), listened with grace and humility, though he stood in a warzone with trust and honour and strength and I lay on a sofa with a beer in my hand and not a one of the three that are so natural to him.

The brother who is now a man, while I remain a child.

The brother that I scarcely know, and dearly want to know, and talk with, and learn from for years to come. The brother whose friendship and respect I covet more than almost any other.

The brother I miss as I have never missed my brothers.

My brother Caleb is in Iraq. God bring him home.