Editor’s Note: This reflection first appeared on The War Horse, an award-winning nonprofit news organization educating the public on military service. Subscribe to their newsletter.
My little sister has been in the military for 19 years, serving in Germany, U.S. territories, South Carolina, and elsewhere. Since February, she’s called a base in the Middle East home.
I’ve known her location and her proximity to danger for months, but it had felt like she wasn’t really there. Iran seemed intent on attacking bases other than hers, and American casualties were rare. Our conversations were often about how bored she was. The lousy food. How unbearable the heat and the flies are.
Sometimes I send her articles and ask if what I’m reading about is happening near her. If she answers, it’s usually to tell me not to believe everything I see. But she doesn’t tell me much. She doesn’t want me to worry and can’t tell me information she’s not authorized to share. There are many reasons; none of them let me sleep better at night.
My sister and I couldn’t be more different. Growing up, I cared about good grades, college, and building a fairly traditional life, whereas she spent high school partying and then working while she figured out her path.
When we were young, our differences created distance in our relationship, but when my sister joined the Air Force — creating an actual, physical distance — it somehow brought us closer.
We haven’t lived in the same state in almost 20 years, but we talk and text almost every day. When she’s on leave from the military, it’s at my house. We’re now as close as two sisters can be. When her spouse suddenly died two years ago, I was in the car almost immediately, driving 13 hours to be with her.
It wasn’t until she was badly injured by a drunk driver while stationed overseas that I learned what it’s like to worry about her from so far away.
She was supposed to be home by Memorial Day. “Start looking for a lake house,” she told me. It made no sense without firm dates, but I still looked. Then Memorial Day passed, as did the next anticipated date in June. Now her departure date is at the end of August. But we both know that date isn’t any more real than the others.
On a Monday in July, I texted her a picture of the French toast I had cooked. She responded with a funny GIF and told me to fuck off because she’s tired of rice. She sent me a picture of some gray hair she found and I sent her a picture of mine. This is what middle-aged sisters send each other when they’re 6,000 miles apart.
Later that week, she video called me at 7:30 p.m. my time. It was 2:30 a.m. for her, and so dark that I could barely make out her helmet and vest. She calmly told me her base had just been hit. Her friend was in the dorm that was struck. He survived, but she didn’t know much more.
She turned around the camera for the briefest of moments to show me the dark sky and the pinkish-purplish smoke. She had heard over the radio that there were casualties.
The distance is not new, but the worry is different now. A few days ago, my sister was merely danger-adjacent. Now she has survived an attack on her base that killed three Americans. My heart and my concentration are gone. My phone’s primary use? News alerts and texts from my sister.
I don’t want to constantly ask if she’s alive. That’s morbid. But I need to know that she’s alive. I recently asked her if she was scared. In 19 years of service, it was the first time I ever asked her that.
“Yes, of course,” she wrote back. “Anyone saying different is lying.”
The news cycle is very slow. I knew what happened for almost 24 hours before it was in the media. So I scrolled through TikTok looking for something funny to send her — because when she hearts it, I know that she’s OK.
Here in the United States, we debate this war in the abstract — whether the Iranian regime is evil, if we should even be there, whether this administration made the right call.
My sister doesn’t get the abstract version. So I will keep sending her pictures of my food, the dogs, and funny TikTok videos — so she knows how much she is loved, and I know that she’s still there.
This War Horse reflection was edited by Kim Vo, fact-checked by Trey Strange, and copy-edited by Mitchell Hansen-Dewar.
Karen Marks is the founder of Design Your Support, where she helps e-commerce brands build better customer support. She lives outside Buffalo, New York, with her husband and two sons. Her sister has served in the military for 19 years, first in the Air Force and now in the Air National Guard.
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