Now that all the proper family members have been added to the loop, I have been given permission to discuss what’s been going on that has changed nearly everything for the moment.
Admiral Fubar has received his deployment orders and leaves for training this week. He is scheduled to be in Baghdad on the 1st of July but will be in training camps for the next three months.
Obviously, I was in on this information much earlier than most but purely for the necessity of needing to be able to help him make plans and arrangements as well as the orders not being finalized and there was no need to scare anyone or tell them before we had information to offer in detail.

It’s not a surprise to long time readers that Admiral Fubar is in the National Guard. He originally enlisted in the Reserves but transferred to the Guard because he wanted to come to Portland and they didn’t have a comparable unit here for Reserves.

Ultimately, I hope this explains my absence from regular blogging/ friends activities/most social functions. It explains why I am still in Portland and have not run off willy-nilly to LA. It explains why I got an apartment with him. It explains a lot.

Lately the depression and the anxiety has been pretty bad so I’ve pretty much avoided people altogether. Clearly, I am hanging a lot of my hope on the very small possibility that his deployment will be cancelled while he is in training. It’s a small hope but one I am clinging to anyway.

For the last three months he and I have discussed everything from last wishes, next of kin, a very real fear of returning home different, best case scenarios and worst case scenarios, possibilities of needing power of attorney. Etc.

The hardest part of all of this has been the inability to talk about it. He wished to tell the family in person and only when we knew for sure what the final orders would be – so I’ve been obliged to keep silent despite a tremendous weight of grief. This has been his ordeal and I’ve just been trying to do what he needs and asks for regardless.
Many of you have watched the progression of Admiral Fubar from bumbling Mormon escapee to a grown man of Portland.

Not that I’ve been able to talk about it somewhat one friend joked, “You’re his big sister – why did you let him enlist?”
Also, I have come over the last few years of his service, to have a great deal of confidence in the focus of his decisions.

Admiral Fubar never really had a father or a father figure, so he has made his way to an internal sense of honor that – while I am sad and scared for his choice – I am absolutely in awe of how he struggles through it to maintain his own code of internal ethics to be a good, kind and wise man, purely by force of will. He is one of the best men I know and I don’t say that lightly because it has taken me time as his big sister to realize that he has in fact become a man right before my eyes.

And I completely and passionately understand that a man must do what he feels he must do to be a man. Any compromise to his honor or sense of center will compromise any of his future decisions. So therefore, even had I the power or opportunity to stop Admiral Fubar from going – I respect him far too much to hinder his chosen course.

But don’t think for a minute that I didn’t think of breaking both his legs with a bat while he slept in an effort to disqualify him from deployment. I only thought about it for a minute.
So there is it. I am setting up a home base. It works out well for me to as I’ll have more time in Portland to organize life as it were. I’ll have time and space for writing. I’ll be able to watch his things and keep his belongings safe while he’s over seas so at least he knows – no matter what he is party to, witnesses, must endure or not endure. He has a safe place to return to. He has a home with a room, a car in a garage, and a sanctuary to cave into when he gets back and needs time to readjust.

All that being said, I fear the compartmentalizing I’ve done for the last few months has reached critical mass. I’m emotional. Touchy. Distracted and sad. I don’t feel social and really just want to be left alone to read or write or scrapbook.

There’s no need to worry. I’m good at caving and rebooting and I’ll be back to working order in a few weeks with a new sense of optimism or a plan. I’m good at the planning thing.
Strangely, despite the downturn of energy and the redirection of my focus these last couple of months making preparations.

The conversations we’ve had, till the wee hours are usually heartbreaking and heavy and laden with the sort of complexity that let’s me know his brain is working serious overtime. He’s imagining scenerios, danger, relief, anxiety and only by the conclusion that he arrives at and says in a half sleepy voice over a melted bowl of ice cream to I know, in my gut, he will be okay – and this is why.

Because I helped raise him. I walked him to school or church. I helped him learn his timetables, read, and catch bugs in jars. I also gave him the biggest scar on his forehead. Watched him make the leap to leave the Utah bubble. Forced him into child labor pulling me in the red wagon and dressed him up in wigs and lipstick. I was there are he made choices to break the mould in which he’d been caste and I cheered him on when he took his first brave awkward steps. I also made him eat mud pies with ground up crickets inside, but that’s another story.

Because I have known him from the very beginning. I know the whole back-story and the fiber that created him, the fire the tempered his metal and the center of goodness that he fundamentally is – I know he will be okay. He is one of the most intelligent guys I know. He’s still got some savvy to learn but he’s quick and he’ll catch on fast. He’s unflinchingly steadfast, powerfully determined and above all – much to my utter pride – he is a free thinker. He’ll be fine.

He’s a big guy. He’s strong. He’s jovial and easy to get along with. He’s got enough flex in his judgment to make good calls but he also contains a power center of absolute ethics. His self-earned, self-made code of honor is one of the very things I am most proud of and the very thing that puts me in awe of his youth.

Where the fuck did he learn that? I have no idea. But I am glad he’s got it, because regardless of the outcome of this new adventure – with that code of honor that he follows for himself, he’ll come out of this just fine.

All this is how I know he’ll be okay.

Despite the knowing there is worry. Despite the comprehension there is still a sister’s concern. It doesn’t matter than he’s nearly a foot taller, he is still my Little Man, and I will make him a fucking hot chocolate with marshmallows whenever he wants one, and be prepared to throw down with any idiot who has something to say about it.

So the cat is officially out of the bag, Admiral Fubar leaves this week for training and then Baghdad.

Last night Admiral Fubar and I drove to pick up a dining table and chairs from a woman on CL. Of course, I glanced at the map and assumed I knew where I was going and we were then lost for the better part of an hour. By the time we got there, she had already disassembled the table and set the chairs out to be moved.