When I turned eight, he left and I missed him all the time. I missed him when I woke up, when I went to bed, and every second in between. When he explained the situation, I asked him why he had to leave us. He said his country needed him, and that if he didn’t go, someone else would have to take his place. Thoughts clouded my mind. I felt I wasn’t important enough for him to stay. He said he was sorry he loved us, and promised he’d make it home safe and sound.

But you can’t make promises like that when you’re in the middle of a war-zone. Safety isn't guaranteed. I didn't realize until months into his deployment. I started to understand what it meant. My interest peaked when I heard about Iraq on the news. The anchors talked of death, violence, and horror. This terror intensified when my dad called one night. We spoke of normal things – school, friends, and the holidays. Everything seemed mundane until there was a deafening bang. A bomb? I heard chaos. Screams of agony and urgent shouts. Then the phone went dead.

The fear I felt that day will never be forgotten. I’m not sure I’ll ever be the same. But something positive came out of his year in Iraq – the realization that family is everything. The bond we have is something unbreakable, something nothing can break. Not even war.