Photos in the family album show my brother, age 5, sneaking up on me, age 7, while I'm reading on the sofa. He's dressed in army fatigues, complete with helmet. He loved those clothes so much that even after our mom ordered them to the dirty-clothes hamper, he'd fish them out behind her back and put them on again.
Nineteen years later, Matt's fatigues are the real thing, and he just finished his third tour in Iraq as a Marine. He kept going back because the pressure, adrenaline and travel are what he signed up for, and he wanted to relieve some of the soldiers with families who are stuck there for much longer stretches.
My brother is the hero of the family. His e-mails from Baghdad, models of crisp prose usually detailing the day's plumbing problems, got forwarded to friends and family who had never met him but looked forward to each update. Last summer, during a family vacation in Maine, several of us visited a strawberry field where you paid for each basket you filled.
While we weighed in, the owner gushed her admiration "for what you're doing over there" to Matt. It doesn't hurt that he's a strapping six-footer whose photos get all my female friends -- and many of my male friends -- swooning.
