When I was younger, I thought the superheroes: Spider-Man, Batman, heck even Clifford were real. What I didn’t know is that heroes are real, but not the over done Hollywood characters. As I spiraled up in age, I learned this to be true. My oldest brother, is my personal hero. 

My brother has spent his entire life as a Special Forces member. He travels the world and has a home in South Korea. Still, no matter where in the world he was when this story took place, he would call me all the time and wanted to talk about my grades or my cross-country races. On one occasion, we were on the phone and I heard several gunshots and I didn’t hear his voice.  I couldn’t sleep or go to school for a week until he called back.
My brother’s job is highly demanding and 4 years ago I nearly lost him. My brother was gunned down and took 8 large homemade bullets to the chest,  that had a deadly homemade poison in them.  My brother threw a grenade and that was all he remembered. What he didn’t know was that the grenade went off just as an entire other group with a gang leader they had been looking for, entered. The gang leader was notorious for kidnapping kids and having them apart of his gang.

My heart broke when I saw my hero dying at Walter Reed Hospital in D.C. The army had paid for everyone he wanted to see to come because he was not improving. Every night for 3 days I slept next to him and thought to myself why the world was so angry. Why did I have to loose him already? I was the angriest I will probably ever be at that moment but it’s true. The world really could be “a better place”, I thought to myself as I stared at a Ziploc bag full of metal and the bullets. Knowing my brother, he probably told them he wanted them or something weird like that. My brother’s condition improved but the idea stayed with me.

I truly seek to not destroy nor to pollute in this world as a person. As my hero would agree, there’s already enough problems in the world to start adding more.