Four years ago, Pfc. George Barnes came home from Iraq. He had all 10 fingers, 10 toes, both arms and both legs. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) was the nature of his injury. It cannot be held together with a stitch or managed with a wheelchair. They classified him as a Wounded Warrior. The warrior came back, but he, my brother, was left over there because every Soldier dies in a war.

Feb 2006: Hey sis. Things are the same here, taking it day by day. I'll give you advice on life. Take your time with the ones you love because you don't get it back. I'm finding that out the hard way.

On Thanksgiving Eve in 2010, my brother was served with divorce papers. I woke up to the sound of his voice, "I can't believe this s***!" Walking out of my room, I recalled an incident where a Joint Base Lewis-McChord Soldier recently shot his wife before taking his own life. I imagined what the scene looked like. It can never happen to our family is a phrase I hope we can always say.

"You better think twice before you do what I think you are going to do," my mother said while thumbing through a cookbook. I snuck past them toward the coffee pot. "And what's that?" My brother paced back and forth with his arms straight at his sides and his hands clenched into a fist. "Pop one of those damn pills in your mouth. That's what." Reaching for a cup, I noticed his pill bottles lined up on the bottom shelf. Zoloft, Trazadone and Ambien were in front of five others. My brother stormed out of the house. "What about this?" my mother said, pointing to a recipe for pudding. "That sounds great mom," I said while placing my hand on top of hers. I just held it there for a moment.

April 2006: Hey sis. Good to hear from you again. I'm not the one to ask about justifying a fight. You're probably asking the wrong dude for that seeing how I have a 9mm Beretta with ammo strapped to me for the whole year...We got hit with an IED the other day. We were heading down route when we had to respond as backup. We heard a BOOM! And saw dust and flash of orange light...all in a day's work in Iraq I guess.

Things were okay at first when he came back from over there. We went to Disneyland for his homecoming. Then he was sent to Korea for twelve months, leaving his then wife and two daughters behind. Korea is where the PTSD manifested. "I never should have gone, but I'm glad I did because my girls weren't there to see it," my brother recently told me from his home in Colorado. He has been separated from them ever since. It all started with an affair leading to an investigation that demoted him from an E-5. The worst was yet to come in the field. "Tanks started going off and I just started crying and I ran and hid under an ambulance," he explained. The most chilling incident was when they wanted to qualify him to carry a rifle. "I told them that that probably was not a good idea." When I asked why, he responded, "Because I would have killed them with it."

May 2006: Hi there sis. Lost 2 more Soldiers this week...I really hate this country...went to a boy's school today and while I'm pulling security kids walk by and wave and say hi and smile at me. It breaks my heart...I always think of my girls and have to put it out of my head.

A few months ago, my brother called me after a night of drinking. It was 3 a.m. on a Monday. This was the first time in four years he opened up to me about what happened in Iraq while being a combat medic. He told me about his recent therapy for PTSD, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR). According to the EMDR International Institute, the therapy changes the way people process information. Someone can still remember a traumatic event, but it is less disturbing. Even though it was helping and he could talk to me about the specific traumatic experience, he is still unable to share it openly with just anyone. This was also the first time he told me about his suicide attempt. Twice, he said, once by taking sleeping pills with alcohol. He wouldn't share how he tried the second time.

Today, my brother is remarried and formally discharged from the Army. Though unable to work, he is enrolled in college full-time while collecting social security. Despite the awful PTSD symptoms - headaches, forgetfulness, sleep disturbances, nightmares and angry outbursts - he says the hardest part is being classified as someone with a mental illness. When he feels anxious, his calming point is his car. "I have a picture of my wife and two girls in there ... I look at them and tell myself that I am alive for them."