martyrs and patriots

My brother tells me to shut the fuck up.

Mostly, I am ok with this.

He is 19, drinking is still a sport to him. Sometimes he gets brave. He is a Marine. The world is something to him that he thinks I will never understand.

But I do understand at least that much… so I let it go.

I tell him we don’t have to be martyrs.

This is a hard concept for he and I to understand. We were raised to be martyrs. Fox was required reading. Those were supposed to be our heroes. Christ. Peter. Stephen. Men who used their corpses to keep flags in the air. These were the stories we heard. They told us to go be like those guys. That is honor. That is a man. We were boys, who wanted to be men. That is the rite of passage to manhood. Sacrifice yourself for the good of others. Sacrifice yourself for the good of your family. Sacrifice yourself for the good of your country. Then, you become a man.

We are good listeners. The sacrifices we know about are messy. This shit gets confusing.

The men telling us this are wearing suits. I wanted to ask what they had to sacrifice. We weren’t allowed to raise our hands.

That’s usually how it goes, I guess.

I tell my brother we don’t have to be martyrs.

He tells me he is a Patriot.

I try to tell him there is a difference, but he hangs up before I can.

---

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

• Dear Husband