8:34

I'm sure I'm not the only person who still thinks he's (or she's) 17. I have to think about it for a second to realize that I'm 28 years old and that my siblings have also aged and are no longer little kids.

I called my brother tonight, most likely the last time I will talk to him for at least a year in a form other than email. He flies out tomorrow for the sunny skies and green (poppy) fields of Afghanistan. I've known that this will happen for a while. Initially it was to be Iraq, and eventually it was changed to Afghanistan.

He's excited about going; he wants his first confirmed kill. The last few years have all been foreplay to his big trip east, his trip to "The Show". He's not a grunt, he's some form of lieutenant, he'll be the only one with his job at the base where he will be stationed. This should keep him safe, though he is still on some level expendable.

I called my brother tonight and told him to come back safely; not to do anything that's likely to get his ass shot off. I don't know what else to tell him. The sum of my experiences is not likely to help him in whatever encounters he has over there. I can only tell him to come back alive and hope that it's not the last time that I talk to him.

I called my brother to tell him that I'm sorry for beating him up as a kid—there are some fights that I'm really not proud of, where I was far too violent with him. I called him to let him know that whatever happened earlier in our lives, though we're not terribly close, I'm still here for him.

But alas, we're both Lees. We don't voice feelings to others in our family. They don't know how to receive it, and we don't know how to say it. So the long phone call where we talk about everything—isn't.

Instead, it lasts just 8 minutes, 34 seconds.