Marc A. Arizmendez, 30

After days of sifting through decades of memories about my brother, I realize that many of the most recent exchanges with him when I visited him in Germany in early 2010. The snow was 2 feet high, but he and I would walk outside so he could smoke a cigarette after dinner.

The conversations were pretty one-sided: I was talking, and Marc listening, taking occasional drags and cupping the cigarette in his hands.

After I would make my point and run out of steam, I t typically looked to him for some sort of response. Then, in the style of a world-weary old cowboy, silent with but a few well placed words, he'd give me a wry smile that gave me pause to perhaps reconsider my intentions -- or move ahead.

In looking back at these conversations, I now understand that the way he exhaled his cigarette smoke and even turning his head were the signals to his opinion on an issue. It may have been his 11 years as an Army soldier that taught him to listen, think and then do, but wherever this Yoda-like persona initially developed, I now appreciate what, that at 30 years old, he was teaching me.

When I was a freshman in high school, I got a call from my mom at the hospital, where she had just given birth to Marc. She had asked me to help name him, and I thought that the alternate spelling of his name was a great choice.
I was always looking afterhim until I went away to college and our age differences helped to create more distance between us.

I did think of him as a boy for much of his life, but as he progressed through the Army, he displayed that lead-by-example quiet confidence that caught me by pleasant surprise and grew to admiration and pride.

Marc, I miss you and I love you. I will find ways to make YOU proud of me. It hurts a lot now but why shouldn't it? b/c you are special.

I am so sorry for your loss. Beautiful words for your brother.

THANK YOU!!!!!!! For your sacrifice, words do little to describe our sincere gratitude. However, There is a hope for a future where such wonderful people will not have to die in the wars of the world. ISAIAH 2:4 And he will certainly render judgment among the nations and set matters straight respecting many nations and set matters straight respecting many peoples. And they will have to beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning shears. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, neither will they learn war anymore....REV 21:3,4-"death will be no more"