His Name Was Jeremy

I remember getting handed the phone on February 29, 1988.
I wasn’t even five years old, but I still remember the feeling—the rush of joy when my parents told me I had a baby brother.

I handed the phone back to my aunt and uncle and started jumping around the room, full of a kind of innocent, sibling wonder.

The next day, I went to the hospital and saw him for the first time.
I remember when he wrapped his tiny hand around my outstretched finger.
I remember holding him—me in my Ghostbusters uniform, him in a onesie.

We played wiffle ball in the backyard.
We hunted for minnows, tadpoles, and arrowheads in the creek behind the house.
We welcomed another brother into our lives when Jeremy was two.

He pissed me off plenty.
He pranked me. Mocked me. Literally assaulted me.
When he learned new slurs or cutting insults, I was his first test subject.

But through all of it, Jeremy always wanted to be a soldier.

He didn’t care much for school. Or chores. Or staying still.
He only cared about living—fully, constantly, maybe recklessly.

Like he knew.

Because on September 6, 2006, only two weeks into his first deployment to Iraq, after complaining over and over about getting passed over for missions, he finally got one.

He walked into a guard post in Hawijah to relieve his friend.
They were talking—just small talk.
Jeremy asked for a smoke.

Seconds later, he was on the ground. Shot in the head.

He was flown to Balad in a last attempt to save him, but he was already gone.

18 years. 6 months. 6 days.

At his funeral, the whole town came.
The National Guard.
His friends.
Strangers who just wanted to be there.
The Marine Corps League. The VFW. All of them.

I stood beside his casket and looked at my brother—thinking back to that first moment, his fingers wrapped around mine.

He's been gone longer than he was here.
And I haven’t healed. I never will.
But I’ve lived long enough now to understand that healing wasn’t the point.

Remembering is.

So today—on Memorial Day—I do what I want done every day:
I remember my brother.
For the man he was.
For the love he left behind.

And yeah, for being a lovable little prick.

Cpl. Jeremy Reed Shank
2/29/88 – 9/6/06