I don’t even know where this is going anymore. I’m haunted by boredom and lack of motivation. And it’s only August. We have no idea what is going on, what’s going to happen. Hopefully we’ll find out sooner or later. I just wish that I had agreed to join the assessment team long before. They’re still in Iraq. Who knows what things they’re witnessing there? It’s already been 3 weeks. I wish I was with them right now…
They say we’re to get Anthrax shots again. This will be our 3rd, coming up in October sometime. But I really don’t know why the Army is even bothering with them. Why should we worry about anthrax when there is no proof of it now that we’ve pretty much compltely taken over? Damn, sometimes I just don’t understand the Army. Wasting manpower, time, and millions of dollars on stupid things like that.
I got into an argument with Edward on the 11th of Aug. I don’t know exactly what it was, but everything started to frustrate me. I remembered the money I lent him. Suddenly, nothing made sense. He was still depositing money to my parents out of his monthly bills. All of a sudden, I had become an idiot. He was making deposits in that account before and even after I had lent him money. It didnt make sense. Then I remembered the things I’ve done for him in deployment. I remember how hard I had to try to remain in contact with him, and how little, actually nothing, he’s done for me in return. Then I remembered the girls he’s been calling that wasted his monthly time limit, the girls he’s been visiting, and him telling Patrick to bring the computer down, although he could have done it himself, a week before Patrick’s summer finals. Instead, he spent those 3 or more days in New York, Canada, and back, having visited my father’s side of the family, and of course, his girls. I remembered his aggressive objection to my guitar purchase, demanding I go back and make the refund, telling me he’s been in the military long enough to know what is and isn’t excess baggage. I remembered no letters in the mail, nothing in the emails except his weekly wrap ups he sent to everyone else. I remembered his desperate plea for me to give him my computer, one that I had received from my platoon leader, asking me if I really needed it, telling me to buy a new computer because the one I received wasn’t good enough for me anyway. I don’t know what money is worth to him, but I know it’s worth a lot to him than it is to me. He responded to all my objections at this point, telling me that he’s praying for me and is doing pubic relations for me, and that he couldn’t have done anything anyway, since he has had no car for the past 4 months. I thought that was the most pathetic thing I had ever heard, especially because he’s never had owned a car. I don’t know if he knows how much he’s disappointed me in the past 6 months. And I didn’t know how else to end it. I became a bank, something I needed the least, being away from home. My friends did a better job at motivating me than he did, he who had called himself my family. I had to end it. I disowned him. He had become a burden to me, and I had become nothing more than a bank to him. I couldn’t handle it. I figured he would have nothing to ask of me now, since he was in Korea. My anger became greater, too sustained, never relieved in the past 6 months. It was enough. I don’t know when the last straw landed on my back, but I had to call it quits. I don’t know how else to make him learn. He, being 4 years older than me, had all of a sudden become a kid that earned more money than me yet was whining about what little more I could do for him. I don’t know if everyone else had become some sort of free investment for him, but I certainly had. I was the obedient teenager that became the puppet of his greater will. And he would laugh it off when I had occasionally told him it’s enough, saying that he’s sorry. But he didn’t remember or do anything about it: he was never sorry enough. It greatly burdens me so for having said the things I did, now having done what I did. But it was also a moment of great relief for me, because it meant two things. I wouldn’t worry about his superficial ‘brotherly’ relationship with me. Secondly, I believed that it would give him time to reflect and think about who he is, who he has become, to realize that something is wrong with him. I dearly hope that this will give him a chance to redeem himself. Now, here in the hear of the desert, generations from the nearest civilization, I could finally start to worry about myself and those that clearly show their concern for the same.