to: S. Sgt. Jackson from: his sister

this is dedicated to my heroic little brother S.Sgt.Jackson.
he really isn't that little anymore(actually he has been taller than me for a long time now), but it is never hard for me to remember when he was. we fought, we yelled, we punched each other...but we were really lucky to have each other. we had a great life growing up together...in a country far, far away dancing like funky monkeys all night long. we loved spain, we loved spaniards, we loved the customs and the jokes and the soccer 'till all hours of the night. we loved dancing like dorks in the discos with our true friends. we loved climbing tall mountains in sneakers and soccer shorts, camping in bumpy (illegal) terrain, and soaking in sun and many waves the next morning ( minus when he got stung by some sea fish, and kicked in the eye!) we loved the warm spanish nights, the warm spanish hearts, the warm greasy spanish food. we loved it.
time ticked, we grew up, jumped from spanish schools, american schools, home schools to boarding schools...and really i think we loved it. we griped and complained, but what else do you do when you are a bored teen? at least i look back now and i think it was a pretty good time.
we did things together, we stuck together. so, together off we went to a boarding school, away from a home, a family and a country we had loved...to a new place we would also learn to love. we ran track, cross country, played soccer, and capture the flag with machine guns and machetes (not really, bummer!), we slept through our high school lectures, joked about stupid things, quoted movies over and over, laughed about sad things and cried about silly stuff.
then we were done, school was over...we graduated and moved on. we moved to very different places. he enlisted in the army and i went to a liberal arts university. i graduated, got married, had two boys, am a freelance translator and live in hickville USA. he got promoted, got married, reenlisted, had a son, got promoted, was deployed, got promoted and was made into a hero.

i am way older (ha!) and wiser now and look back only to see the great times we had, the amazing things we accomplished, i forget the boring days, the hard times without friends...the ugly awkward years of our youth...i just remember that we were(and are) buddies, we were together and we did have a great time (most of the time) and we loved it. (at least i think he did too) and really the hard times were what made us who we are today.

here's to hard times, good times, little brothers, and having true heroes...